As the best friend of Chip Gaines and Joanna Gaines from HGTV’s Fixer Upper, Clint Harp and his wife Kelly know a thing or two about turning something drab into something fab — and now he has his own show on the DIY channel!
The 40-year-old first met Chip at a gas station on a day when he was second-guessing his decision to leave his six-figure medical sales job. “We were out of money, living in a small apartment with two kids, and I didn’t even have a shop yet,” Clint said in an interview with DIY. “Chip mentioned that his wife wanted to add furniture to her growing product line. Of course, I was great with that! But he also kept saying, ‘I don’t know. It just seems like it might be something more.'” And he was certainly right about that! Get to know more about Clint and his story below!
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Clint and Kelly met at Baylor University
The duo married shortly after college and then lived in Houston, TX before moving back to Waco, TX, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald. They have three kids: Hudson, Holly, and Camille.
A sticker-covered table leg secured Clint’s first deal with the Gaines
Clint recalled a day when he tried to make a table leg that took nearly all day. When it was complete, he didn’t even like it. “That experience, coupled with growing financial stress and just a general doubt in myself, just about broke me down. I felt like a failure,” he said. Yet with a little support from his wife and kids, he got his groove back.
“My wife liked the leg, and my kids took it and covered it in encouraging stickers. I took it back to the shop and leaned it in the corner. A couple of weeks later, Jo stopped by with designs, and she really wanted a turned leg for her farm tables. She looked over in the corner and saw the leg covered in my kids’ stickers and said, ‘That’s it. I love it! Use that for the Magnolia Farms tables.’ So in the end, I guess some things just happen because they are supposed to.”
Joanna designed their home — but they moved due to stalkers
“I’d be playing in the backyard with my kids and people would be walking around waving at me,” Clint told CultureMap Dallas. “We just had to move for privacy reasons, but we love that house so much.” The couple still owns the home, but now they rent it out to visitors through Airbnb.
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President Jimmy Carter was friends with Clint’s grandparents
When Clint first started working as a carpenter, he was inspired by a family friend to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, an organization that the President also served. “I knew it would be a cool way to give back to someone who has meant a lot to our family,” Clint told the Midland Reporter Telegram.
Their new show Wood Work is produced by Fixer Upper‘s production company
High Noon Entertainment is the production company behind TLC’s Cake Boss, Animal Planet’s Dr. Dee: Alaska Vet and more than two dozen other television shows. It was also behind “Against the Grain,” the first pilot built on the Harps’ work. It aired last June, but DIY execs wanted something a little different. “‘Against The Grain‘ really didn’t show who we are, a band of guys and gals who work together in Waco,” Clint said. “They wanted more of that and more of Kelly and what she does.” Still, they don’t forget their roots and are grateful for Chip and Jo. “Kelly and I have cried, argued, stressed, laughed, and taken one of the biggest leaps of blind faith we have ever taken. And we wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Fixer Upper‘s final season airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EST on HGTV.
