Fixer Upper returns to celebrate its 10th Anniversary as Chip and Joanna Gaines renovate a lake house in their first HGTV appearance since 2018

Chip and Joanna Gaines made their long-awaited return to HGTV on Sunday, debuting their new series Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse.

The episode celebrated Chip, 49, and Joanna, 46, as they celebrated the 10th anniversary of their beloved series.

The show debuted in 2014, although the Gaines left HGTV in 2018 to start their own Magnolia Network.

Now they’re back for a six-episode series, with Chip revealing at the beginning of the episode that he bought this house to celebrate their 10th anniversary.

As they drove to the house, they reminisced about their early years, with Chip joking, “I remember literally not knowing where to put my hands.”

Joanna added, “And now I think there’s something about this lake house that just feels important, that this project has landed on our tenth anniversary of the ‘fixer.’

The couple revealed that they had always wanted a lake house, but there weren’t that many in Waco, but they found this at the right time at the right price.

Chip adds, “It was built in 1965 and spans over 5,100 square feet. But the last renovation was in the 1980s, so it certainly has some interesting features.”

“But hey, it has five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a nice pool, sits on an acre and a half and has a million dollar view,” he added.

They go inside and admire the view, although they apparently disagree with Joanna’s plans to install terrazzo floors in two rooms.

They go into the living room where Joanna thinks the windows are ‘too short’, although she acknowledges how expensive it will be.

Chip thinks it will be “a lot of money for about thirty windows,” although Joanna says it’s just her “wish list.”

Chip insists that they’ve never lost “their tail” on things and continues that it’s going to cost too much.

She describes plans for a new kitchen, swapping the old laundry room for the new kitchen that will be much larger.

They go upstairs to the bedrooms and then to the backyard, where they find a rather dirty swimming pool.

“We’ve been living in the Fixer Upper universe for ten years, and this lake house feels like a cherry on top,” Chip says.

They begin the demolition process, which Joanna admits “definitely causes some anxiety,” before checking out the pool.

“I’m afraid there’s something in there,” Joanna says, before screaming when she discovers a frog.

He asks her to see how deep it is, but she refuses, saying she doesn’t want to “die” down there.

Joanna begins to go through the design aspects and uses computer-generated 3D models to imagine what the house would look like.

She admits that the bigger windows weren’t as expensive as they thought, so her “wish” will come true.

She explains that the old kitchen will now be a “mudroom” that opens to the new laundry room.

“I can’t wait to see this all come together in the house, but I think seeing it here makes me really excited to get started,” Joanna said.

Chip adds, “Over the last few weeks we’ve really started transforming this house. Upstairs, the primary bathroom has a completely new layout. We have framed the new kitchen downstairs. We also knocked out that wall to create that nook in the dining room. We got new electricity throughout the house and at the back it turned out that the pool needed to be completely redone, which cost us a little more than a cleaning, but it is not a budget breaker. It’s like night and day compared to that swamp water. Today Jo and I have a design problem to solve.”

They start arguing over design elements, as Chip jokes, “To some people it might seem like an argument.” But for Jo and me, it’s really just us weighing each other up, you know, leaning. It sharpens our ideas.’

Discovering that the original color of the house was green, Joanna says, “This allows us to see what the paint will ultimately look like on a larger scale, and we love it.” And even knowing that it was originally green in the 1960s, I feel like we’re bringing it back to what it used to look like.”

They start playfully discussing skylights again because the dining room and the red room are “so dark.”

Chip says, “It’s like seeing those rafters, my heart… My mind wants to jump up and see how many pull-ups I can do,” and he actually pulls one out.

Joanna says, “You’ve been so hard on your body for the past thirty years doing the impossible. Just give it a rest.”

They’re also amazed that their team was able to fix the terrible-looking pool, which Chip says is the “biggest bang for the buck” of this entire project.

They start talking about trees they need to get rid of to improve visibility, because they realize it’s actually mistletoe.

The episode also shows Joanna making honey, Chip clearing the undergrowth and cutting down trees so they can see the lake.

The episode ends with the couple heading out to see the “million dollar view” of the lake, as Chip jokes, “I don’t want to brag in this particular case, but I told you so.”

Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse continues its six-episode season on Sunday, June 9 on HGTV.