Though the beginnings of the Magnolia enterprise can be traced back 20 years to Joanna’s Waco home store and Chip’s local real estate operation, Fixer Upper is where many first met the Gaineses. In the original iteration of the show, which ran from 2013 to 2018, viewers got a look at what Joanna describes as “the story of my life: Chip will buy a house (he surprises me), I’m mad, and then out of that madness, I’m fueled to get it done”—“it” being a full restoration that transforms projects ranging from somewhat shoddy to total gut jobs into properties staged to Pinterest-worthy perfection, often bringing the new residents (and the show’s viewers) to tears.
On Fixer Upper, or just Fixer, as is the shorthand for everyone in the Gaines orbit, Joanna played the grounded, design-focused counterpart to Chip, whose bombastic energy and Labrador-like enthusiasm for demo day kept things playful but did not belie his own obvious entrepreneurial acumen. When they put their Fixer days behind them in 2018 at the peak of the show’s popularity, it was a calculated move. They were ready to craft a brand in their image with total creative control, which meant launching their Magnolia Network (on which they would premiere their reboot of Fixer) and tending to their myriad commercial pursuits across the retail and publishing realms.
“There was no one that was really encouraging us to [end Fixer on HGTV],” Joanna says, pointing out that some had cautioned them against the move. “They were, like, ‘Well, everything’s going to go away the second you…’” she trails off. “[But] for us, we knew family, home, and regrouping in this new season of life was the priority.” Since then, the pair have worked in tandem on raising their brood and making Magnolia the lucrative behemoth it is today. The duo’s net worth has been estimated as $50 million, while the value of the Magnolia brand, according to a source cited by OK! magazine, was as high as $750 million in 2021.
