Chip and Joanna Gaines's latest fixer-upper makeover impacted many lives — including their own.
In an exclusive clip of the new episode of Fixer Upper: Welcome Home (above), streaming on Discovery+ Friday, the pair brings viewers through a temporary shelter for girls fleeing unsafe living situations in their hometown of Waco, Texas, which they renovated with the goal of making it feel more like home for the girls in transition who stay there.
"There's nothing traditional about this, this is an emergency shelter that needs to practically meet the needs of 16 young ladies," Chip, 46, says in the clip, explaining that the project is a little different than the ones he and his wife have worked on in the past.
They walk through the 3,900-square-foot property with two of the women who run the place: Barbara, the head of the shelter who has been there since it first opened, and Trasha, who came to the home herself when she was younger and now works there helping girls living through similar situations.
The women explain that the girls who come to them typically are between the ages of five and twenty-one, and stay for approximately 90 days. They're typically fleeing "very difficult situations," and the shelter is a safe place for them to land until they go into foster care, get adopted, or have the means to go out on their own, Barbara explains.
Chip and Joanna work with Barbara and Trasha to better understand the needs of these girls and the shelter staff, learning that they'd like to make the home more open to encourage togetherness and rework the dining room with a table that can fit all 16 girls at once.
In the clip, Chip and Jo also look through one of the bedrooms (there are seven total in the home, and most have multiple beds) and take in the way each girl has made their space feel personal. Joanna decided to add custom artwork, rugs, and new bedding to "make sure it feels like home in a unique way."
"What this really stretches all of us to see is that home for a lot of people isn't a safe place," the mom of five says, relaying the importance of the project.
Chip adds that meeting Barbara and Trasha, seeing how much they care for the girls and witnessing the "success story" that Trasha exemplifies "really gave me a lot of hope."
Friday's episode is the final preview episode of Fixer Upper: Welcome Home that will be available to stream on Discovery+. The full season will premiere on the forthcoming Magnolia app, launching July 15.
Discovery Inc., Magnolia Network's parent company, announced last week that the launch of the TV channel had been pushed back again to January 2022 due to COVID-19–related production delays. It was originally intended to launch in October 2020, then pushed to "early 2021."
The Magnolia app, however, will make many of the shows planned to launch on the TV channel available sooner. In addition to Welcome Home, the full first season of Magnolia Kitchen with Joanna Gaines, the complete Fixer Upper archive, and several new series, like Growing Floret, The Lost Kitchen, Homegrown, Family Dinner and Restoration Road with Clint Harp, will all be available to stream.
"Our original plan was to launch in cable and follow in a streaming environment, but the most unconventional of years dealt us challenges and opportunities we never could have foreseen," said Magnolia Network President Allison Page.
Chip and Joanna also shared a statement on the decision, noting, "Our plan has evolved along the way, but our original vision for this network has remained the same."
Preview episodes of Fixer Upper: Welcome Home are available now on Discovery+.
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