Mark: So you weren’t that person who would start wearing something in school, and then everybody else would start wearing it?
Joanna: No. I think at an early age, I realized I don’t have that ability. So why not stick with what stood the test of time? Kind of like the skinny jeans example. Skinny jeans are cute, but they don’t fit me right. They’re uncomfortable. One day I’ll wake up and the flare jeans will be back in style. It all comes back around. What’s in style today, may not be what’s in tomorrow. What has worked for me in the past, is if I’m trying to conserve my dollar, I choose stripes or something classic. When I’m designing a space for people that really don’t know what they want, I say, “In five years, do you want to be renovating your kitchen again?” If they say yes, then let’s do the hottest, coolest thing that’s going right now. But if, in five years, you don’t want to be redesigning your kitchen, well, then we’ve got to find something that’s classic and timeless, and you can always add pops of color with your dishes and your napkins and change the style up in that way. But if you want this kitchen to last a long time, then we’ve got to think differently.
ON OWNING WHAT YOU’VE GOT>>>
Joanna: This has always been the underlying premise of my store: I always said if a woman walks out deflated and kind of feeling defeated, from a design standpoint, then I have failed in my shop. But if a woman walks in there, even if she doesn’t buy any of it, and walks out inspired, thinking I’m gonna try that. I’m gonna take this one little thing and create this great little corner, then I have done what I set out to do, which is inspire people. That’s the same feeling that I have with our show. I don’t want people turning the channel after it’s done going, “Well, that was a really great room, and a great renovation, but I don’t have $150,000, and I don’t have this designer.” If people do that, then I think I’ve failed. If instead they watch the show and think, Hey, I have a $500 budget, and I’m gonna do a shiplap accent wall, then yay! We’ve inspired people to do whatever it is they can, within their capacity. The same with the book. I don’t want people going, "They have a farm, and they have four beautiful children, and they’re on TV now,” and to have a takeaway of some sort of defeat, like, “I wish I was the Gaineses.” That is not what I want. I want them to say, “I don’t have a farm. I don’t have four kids, I’m not on TV, but dang it, I love that they’ve owned it, and I’m gonna own it in my New York apartment, or I’m gonna own it in my LA modern house.”
Chip: We don’t want people to buy our stuff as a way to keep up with the Joneses. Just the opposite. We must get a tweet a day from some fan saying, “Hey. We were inspired by y’all to tackle this and tackle that.” That’s just the best feeling ever. That’s exactly where we’re at. Not everybody’s got $100,000 to go do some giant renovation. We sure didn’t have $100,000 two years ago to go do some awesome thing, you know? We were lucky to do $500 in paint and $200 furniture. But we did the absolute best we could with whatever budget we had. And look at how that turned out?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Chip was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and was raised in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business with a degree in marketing. Chip is an entrepreneur by nature, and started and sold many small businesses before Magnolia. Having grown up spending time on his granddad’s ranch in North Texas, Chip became a true cowboy at heart. He was made for hard labor and always preferred digging ditches to academic pursuits.
Joanna, also known by friends and fans as “Jo” or “JoJo,” was born in Kansas and raised in the Lone Star State. She graduated from Baylor University with a degree in communications and was inspired to join the world of design while interning in New York City. Joanna decided to open a home decor shop, Magnolia Market, in 2003; bringing her NYC-inspired ideas and eye for design back to Waco, Texas. She soon discovered this passion complemented Chip’s construction experience, and together they began remodeling and flipping homes.
Mark Dagostino is a multiple New York Times bestselling co-author whose career has been built through the sharing of uplifting and inspirational life stories. Before becoming an author, he served ten years on staff in New York and LA as a well-respected correspondent, columnist, and senior writer for People magazine, sharing powerful interviews with many diverse personalities. Today, he lives a somewhat quieter life in New Hampshire—in a home that he really wishes Chip and Jo would come fix up!