For this power couple, a hit reality show was really just the beginning.
And we’re not complaining.
In fact, we’re excited to see what this fun-loving couple comes up with next.
Still, Chip and Joanna’s transformation into multimillionaires is even more impressive when you first consider their background.
Here’s what our fave TV couple was like before they became rich and famous.
“I still have an appreciation for buffet lines,” she admitted.
Unfortunately for her, Chip Gaines doesn’t share the same enthusiasm.
She revealed that her kids are the only ones who still enjoy hitting up buffets with her.
Although JoJo started out in food service, her ambitions would take her down a different career trajectory.
And, no it wasn’t interior design.
However, she didn’t act on that inspo at the time.
It wasn’t until Joanna met Chip that she’d gain some minor experience in the interior design field.
Joanna’s eventual hubby also admitted that he didn’t really know anything about those things either.
“I learned it all on the fly,” he wrote.
While studying at Baylor, she became increasingly interested in broadcast journalism.
She eventually landed an impressive internship with “48 Hours.”
But it wasn’t all she’d hoped it would be.
While still in the city, she’d become enamored by boutique owners and their consumers.
That changed once she started pursuing broadcast journalism in college.
But after discovering that wasn’t the field for her, she still had doubts about running the shop.
“As it turned out, I loved Baylor,” he wrote in “The Magnolia Story.”
“I loved being around all those rich kids, even if I was nothing like them.
I loved the girls.
I loved the campus.”
But he wasn’t exactly the best student.
Chip continued to play baseball at the university while he also worked toward getting a degree in business.
He toldPopSugarthat he either wanted to be a baseball player or a politician.
The baseball player bit makes sense, of course, but a career in politics?
This is especially interesting because both Chip and Joanna Gaines have remained tight-lipped about their political affiliations.
Regardless of their political leanings, they’re quite universally loved.
But that wasn’t his only entrepreneurial pursuit.
He and two of his friends came up with the idea while in college.
College students paid a fee upfront and were allotted “a certain number of pounds of laundry.”
Chip and his pals would weigh, launder, and fold the students' clothing for next-day pickup.
Chip and his friends ran their fairly successful business up until the time they graduated.
Their wedding was no doubt beautiful, but it probably didn’t cost them an arm and a leg.
As of this writing,wedding packagesat the home begin at $3,000.
They knew what it was like tostruggle to make ends meet.
“He always had a wad of cash, but we were broke.”
She added, “If I needed to go grocery shopping it’s whatever was in his pocket.
That’s how we paid the bills.”
When the two married in 2003, Chip was flipping houses and making just enough money to get by.
And this didn’t exactly go unnoticed by Joanna’s family.
“I was like, ‘I have a job and I like it.'”
That 30th birthday party he threw for Joanna was no exception.
With nearly $700, he somehow managed to pull off “the surprise of a lifetime.”
However, Joanna wasn’t always confident in her ability to do that.
In anInstagram postfrom 2015, Joanna shared a photo of one of the couple’s first houses.
After fixing it up, though, Joanna said they grew to love it.
In fact, they’d been married for less than a year when Joanna opened Magnolia Market in 2003.
The couple shifted their focus to raising their kids while also growing a construction business.
Instead of selling the building, they began using it as a construction office.
In an interview withHGTV, Chip recalled buying his first flip and admitted he “was hooked.”
Once married, Joanna Gaines would eventually develop the same passion for fixing up houses.
When she saw the money they could make in flipping, she “was hooked, too.”
After spending years growing their family and buying and flipping houses together, HGTV took an interest.
“They researched our company and contacted us for a show.”
“All of this sort of fell into our laps,” Chip toldPeople.
“We were just living our life out here in little bitty Waco.
We had dreams and aspirations like most folks, but this has really been something else.”
But, in trueChip and Joannafashion, the couple only came back bigger and better.
