Joanna Gaines’ 19-year-old son, Drake, doesn’t necessarily share the same love of shiplap that his mother is known for. The interior designer and TV personality helped her son decorate his college apartment — but he quickly added his own design touches after she left. Now, Joanna said during an October 22, 2024, Today show appearance that her son’s college apartment looks more like “a club.”
This is the second year Joanna Gaines has helped her son Drake move into a college dorm or apartment. Given that she’s an interior designer who is known for cohosting the home renovation show Fixer Upper with her husband, Chip Gaines, she was prepared for the move.
And although she spent a lot of time working on her plan and bringing it to life, her son quickly made some changes, which she learned about from her other children.
“I spend all this time and plan. I do it, and then the day I leave, he’ll send pictures to his siblings and then they’ll show me,” Joanna explained on Today. On the show, images of Drake’s redecorated apartment appeared on the screen. Joanna went on to explain that her son added blue LED lights to the apartment — a personal touch that is not exactly her style.
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“This is all about lighting. He wanted more lighting,” Joanna said of her son’s design choices. “He bought some lights on Amazon and strung them throughout his whole apartment. Now it looks like a club.”
Chip was also on the show with her and said the apartment looked great before the blue lights were added to it. “This place was adorable the day before. Now he’s put disco lights in this thing,” Chip said. He also joked that “he’s got a smoke machine in the corner.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Joanna responded to her husband’s joke. “I hope he doesn’t.”
Drake is Joanna and Chip’s first child to move away for college. On the show, Joanna thought about how the next several years will be tough for her as more of her kids finish high school and start college. Thinking about the next four years, she turned to her husband and said, “Good luck, bud.” She noted “all four of [their] older kids will be in college or out of college” within that time.
“We’re in this new season where I’m really trying to embrace every moment,” she explained. She also said that sending a kid to college for the first time was “hard.”
The mom of five is still struggling to process the fact that her daughter Ella will also be starting college soon. Ella is now a senior in high school. “I look at her and I want to cry,” Joanna admitted. “I see her as this little girl and I’m like, ‘How are you already 18 years old?'”
Joanna and Chip share five children: Drake, Ella, 16-year-old Duke, 14-year-old Emmie, and 6-year-old Crew.
