Chip Gaines and his wife Joanna co-starred in their show ‘Fixer Upper’ on HGTV and now run multiple businesses together, but did Chip ever serve in the military?
There is no evidence to suggest that Chip Gaines served in the military. After university, Chip exercised his entrepreneurial streak and eventually starred in five seasons of the show ‘Fixer Upper’ with his wife. The couple now runs multiple businesses in Waco, Texas, including Magnolia Market.
Read on to learn more about Chip’s career both on and off the camera.
Military Career?
Chip Gaines has worked on many professional projects, describing himself as a “serial entrepreneur”, but there is nothing to suggest that his many experiences extend to military service.
Gaines moved to Texas with his family as a young boy and spent a lot of his childhood on his grandfather’s ranch, where he no doubt gained an interest for both construction and the outdoors.
By the time he graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas in 1998 with a Marketing degree, Gaines had already set up multiple small businesses, honing his entrepreneurial nature.
Chip met his future wife and business partner, Joanna, soon after and the couple married in 2003 in Waco, Texas. Though their careers have gone from strength to strength with each other’s support, there’s no suggestion that Chip was ever in the military.
‘Fixer Upper’
The couple opened their first store together in 2003 called Magnolia Market, and worked on their construction business alongside various other projects.
One of these additional ventures came in the form of Joanna’s design blog, which ended up catching the attention of producer, Katie Neff.
Neff explained to E Online that “we are known for taking normal people who are doing extraordinary things with their everyday lives and turning that into television”, which is exactly what happened to Chip and Joanna.
Though the couple originally thought that contact from Neff was part of an elaborate scam, it ended up being the makings of their wildly popular reality TV show, ‘Fixer Upper’.
The series involved the married couple renovating and redecorating the homes of clients in Joanna’s signature “farmhouse chic” style.
Whilst Joanna’s domain has always been design and attention to the smaller details, Chip took charge of the construction elements and could be counted on to “make the impossible possible”.
The series ran for 5 seasons from 2013 to 2017, and their partnership on and off screen made the pair household names beyond their local town of Waco, Texas, firmly establishing them as home design gurus.
Watch the story behind Chip and Joanna’s TV show in the YouTube video below.
Magnolia Markets
When the duo decided to wrap up their series after 5 seasons, they invested their time and energy into growing their Magnolia Market at the Silos complex which provides a shopping, dining and leisure experience and is continually expanding.
The complex is a labor of love that stemmed from the desire to make Waco beautiful, and has become a popular tourist attraction attracting high numbers of visitors.
The pair have attributed their success to the support they received in their early days as business owners and advised. Their advice: “just surrounding yourself with good, sound people that can help you see the big picture”.
Other Ventures
Though ‘Fixer Upper’ came to an end, the couple haven’t left behind the world of television for good and are launching their own TV network with Discovery called ‘Magnolia TV’. The channel is due to launch sometime in 2020 and is hotly anticipated.
The couple have authored numerous books between them, including ‘The Magnolia Story’, and Gaines released his own personal memoir, ‘Capital Gaines’, in 2017. Dedicated to those “who need a little push to get the ball rolling toward pursuing whatever it is they dream of doing” the book gives an insight into his varied and successful career.