After over 20 years flipping houses (and over a decade as an HGTV and Magnolia Network star), Joanna Gaines can certainly be called an expert when it comes to renovating and designing houses. She and her husband, Chip, built an empire from those talents pretty quickly, so many people would trust her ideas about what makes solid home design. Well, she just got real about a big flub people make when fixing up their forever home, and I couldn’t agree with her opinion more!
What Does Joanna Gaines Think Is One Of The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Designing Their Homes?
Chip and Joanna Gaines’ Fixer Upper only ran for five seasons, but the HGTV show was such a major hit that it launched the couple into the home renovation stratosphere. So much so that they eventually started their own channel, the aforementioned Magnolia Network, where the early 2025 TV schedule played host to their newest series, Mini Reni.
Now, the mom of five has revealed what she thinks is one of the largest mistakes that people make when attempting to design their living space. Gaines teaches home design in a class called Designing a Home That Tells Your Story, for Masterclass, and the learning site posted her thoughts on design mistakes to Instagram, where the incredibly fit Magnolia Table host said:
One of the biggest mistakes people make is designing for other people instead of themselves.
OMG. Preach, Joanna! I think this is most obvious when it comes to people looking at trends and then basing their decisions for their own home on whatever is most popular at the time. The problem, of course, is that trends come and go (and can do so rather quickly), meaning that by the time everything for your house is bought and installed it might already be going out of style.
The fun-loving rollercoaster aficionado has opened up before about going into a space to renovate it and finding weird, not quite “family friendly” stuff (mostly in the main bedroom). However, she still admitted that those things make her “so happy,” because at least the previous owners went with something that they knew would fit them, and regardless of how others might see it. As for how to do exactly that if you’re looking to revamp your abode or start from scratch when making plans for a new home, the star added:
Start with, “What do you want your space to feel like?” summed up in three words. It can be a specific style, it can be a mood, it can be a word you love. These three words will guide you through the process. You are the expert of your story, so design with that in mind.
This can be easier said than done for some, because they try to create with ideas of what others will think of their home in mind. Gaines noted that this is never something she worries about, because she simply wants her home “to work for my family.” It sounds like home design really is the perfect place to throw caution to the wind and do exactly what you want.