At the top of the Tuesday, December 9, premiere episode, Joanna explained how their kids inspired their first Fixer Upper project outside of Texas. “In a couple years, the oldest four will be out of the house, and it’s made Chip and I think more about the future and how do we keep this connection as a family,” she said. “Obviously, the farm will always be our central place, but the thing that we have loved as a family is skiing.”
The episode featured footage of the couple and their kids — Drake, 20, Ella, 19, Duke, 17, Emmie, 5, and Crew 7 — on ski trips over the years. Joanna explained that on those trips, she and Chip would take a day to see some real estate in the mountains. Now, they have finally landed on their dream Colorado vacation home.
After closing on the property — which features two bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, a wrap-around deck, two guest cottages, and access to a river — Chip and Joanna brought some of their kids to check out the home for the first time.
Magnolia Network/HGTV
“The kids love the river — a little tricky to get down,” Joanna said over footage of their kids walking through the home and stepping into the river. “We got a rental nearby, and the kids did some skiing.”
The family enjoyed some quality time together as renovations began on their new property. Joining Chip and Joanna on the project is none other than Ella, who the spouses have tasked with designing one of the guest cottages.
“Chip has always told Ella, ‘Hey, before you go to college, I want you to flip a house, do a project.’ She’s always mentioned that she wants to do something in design,” Joanna shared in a confessional. “We’ve actually looked for houses in Waco, didn’t find anything, but Chip had this fun idea to let her tackle the little cottage as her first design project.”
Inside the cottage, Joanna and Ella began brainstorming the design. “I’d love it to feel like a little cottage,” Ella said before picking a dark blue paint color from a book of swatches. Joanna approved of the color, adding, “There’s really no wrong answer. You get to do whatever you want. If you want to paint it black, I’m going to let you paint it black. You know, there’s this general rule, in smaller spaces, the lighter the color makes it feel bigger. I don’t know if our goal is to make it feel bigger. We want it to feel moody. So, I want you to feel like if your gut is dark, we go dark.”
Magnolia Network/HGTV
Joanna wrapped up their day by assigning Ella some design “homework,” asking her to select paint colors, flooring, and light fixture options, tiles for the bathroom and kitchen, a new mirror for the bathroom, and deciding whether to keep or remove the cottage’s built-in closets.
“My biggest hope with letting her tackle this cottage is that it builds confidence in her,” Joanna said in another confessional. “The idea that my daughter, who is now an adult, has decided to take on what her mother does, and I get to teach her, I don’t know. It just feels like this beautiful, full-circle moment.”
Fixer Upper: Colorado Mountain House, Tuesdays, HGTV and Magnolia Network, Streaming same day on HBO Max and Discovery+
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