Joanna Gaines' 19-year-old daughter, Ella, is following in her mother's talented footsteps and pursuing her passion for design, with the college student working alongside the TV personality to complete her own special project. Ella, who moved out of home and headed off to university in August ahead of the fall semester, clearly has an eye for design, having worked on her college bedroom and interned with her mother for several weeks. The teen has "come into her own" in recent years, as Joanna shared in the Magnolia Journal Winter Issue.
"Over the past few years, Ella has really come into her own when it comes to developing her own personal style," she said. "I love her eye, so I asked her to design the small cottage adjacent to the main house [in Colorado]. It was so sweet to share this experience with her before she went off to college."
Joanna shares Ella with her husband, Chip Gaines, as well as kids Drake, 20, Duke, 17, Emmie, 15, and Crew, seven. The brunette beauty explained that Ella and her brother Drake going off to college sparked an idea in her about putting down roots in Colorado. "Now, we've made this annual trek to the mountains for more than a decade, and somewhere along the way, Chip and I started to wonder if Colorado was meant to be a bigger part of our family's future."
"With the kids getting older and going off to colleges in different directions, we kind of loved the idea of having a central place where we could all gather together, a place with all the same comfort and intention and care as the farmhouse in Waco." Fans will learn more about their Colorado home in the upcoming series, Fixer Upper: Colorado Mountain House, set for release in December. Ella will make her debut in the show, as the cameras document her design process.
Learn more about Ella's journey below...
"Chip had an idea to let our daughter design the little cottage," Joanna explained in the trailer, as the camera cut to Ella exploring the space and declaring: "I'm accepting the challenge." Joanna previously opened up about the "raw" feeling of seeing her eldest daughter move across the country to go to college, and added that she designed her dorm room without any help.
"She is very into design and she has her own unique style, so I stepped back and I was like, 'You show me what…' and I let her do the whole thing," Joanna said on Today. "So, it was really what she wanted." Ella also spent time interning for her mother before heading off to college, where she honed her passion for design.
"One of my favorite moments that was so pivotal for me as a mother, but also as a business owner, was my daughter, my oldest daughter, was in on a lot of these conversations before our break in June, that I was having with the team," the 47-year-old shared on the Business of Home podcast.
"She was interning with me, so she'd be in these meetings where I was like, 'Y'all, I need vision. Like, we need to get back to why we're doing what we're doing.' And so she was listening and she was interested." The Magnolia Journal Winter 2025 Issue hits newsstands on Friday, November 14th, and can be purchased online now at Magazines.com.