I Took Joanna Gaines's New Course on MasterClass & It's the Perfect Holiday Gift for Design Fans

For Fixer Upper fans—be it stans who've planned vacations around trips to Waco to visit the Silos or casual Magnolia Network watchers—the chance to get design advice straight from Joanna Gaines is a dream come true. But, given that she's a high-demand designer who happens to be running a TV network and magazine while starring in said shows, designing multiple product lines and writing everything from children's books to cookbooks, getting a few minutes of her time would be challenging, to say the least.

Starting today, though, you can snag 90ish minutes of her time, in the form of a prerecorded online design class offered on MasterClass. Yup, the same platform that lets you hone your cooking skills via video lessons from Gordon Ramsay and Alice Waters, or study the art of storytelling straight from James Patterson and Shonda Rhimes now offers a class taught by Gaines herself.

I got the chance to take the class ahead of its launch, and I must say, it makes for a stellar experiential gift for Gaines and design fans alike. (Especially since MasterClass subscriptions are up to 50 percent off right now as part of a pre-Black Friday deal, so you can pay as little as $7 a month, billed annually, to give this gift.)

Why am I so sold on this as the ultimate gift of 2024 for homebodies everywhere?

All too often, design classes teach in broad strokes, where the information is so vague that you're left with, "design a home that tells your story and is filled with what you love!" And you're like, "I did that, and that's why my house looks like a mish-mash clutter bomb."

While Gaines does subscribe to the "your house should tell your story" philosophy, she offers clear steps and questions she asks herself to help clients figure out what they really want—and how to make it a cohesive, functioning space.

I recommend grabbing a notepad and carving out time to think through each question she poses, starting with just one room of your home that you'd like to update. "Spending the time to define the story you want to tell before you start will ultimately save you time and money, because you'll make fewer changes and fewer mistakes," Gaines explains.

She offers a full checklist of questions to ask as you "take inventory" of your space that she personally uses on every project. "What are the design details that I want to make sure I carry forward, as I start to add my own layers and my own story?" she asks. "I'll look at the molding, I'll look at the floor, I'll look at the trim work...what stays? What goes?" From there, Gaines's questions turn personal, helping you find the balance between working with what you've got and making the space your own.

Gaines backs up each point with examples from homes she's designed, be it the barn house her family lives in today or her recent Lakehouse project. She even shares her own design evolution—like how she's moved away from the modern farmhouse styles that made her a household name in the early 2010s to a "moodier" and "less bright" aesthetic.

She also shares lessons she's learned the hard way—like how a small room next to her kitchen seemed like the perfect space for a home office...until she couldn't get any work done, because "the kids were coming in and out, needing food." Later, it became a sitting space, then a nursery for her youngest son, Crew.

After he outgrew it, she reimagined it again: "What that room evolved into was a butler's pantry, and I'm the butler," she shares. "I saw this as a space where I was refueling creatively, making dough, the kids coming in and getting the first warm cookie off of that island. To me, that's the best day in that space."

That last line really resonated with me—as you reimagine a room, what would the best day be like in that space? Then, what would you need to do to make it function that way? Gaines shares how she opted for open shelves rather the cabinets she'd have to open and shut a bunch of times, and other little decisions that'd make her feel happier to be in that room.

Those specific examples really helped anchor her advice, helping me see how I could answer her questions and apply things to my own home.

Yes. While you can't purchase the class by itself, it makes for an even greater gift because you're offering access to the entire MasterClass library. (Not to mention that an annual subscription is much cheaper than many other online courses I've looked into, which often range from a couple hundred dollars to four figures.)

Plus, MasterClass is a much more fulfilling set of videos to binge than most of the stuff that's streaming these days, and it may just inspire your giftee to finally update that bathroom they've been groaning about for years. That's a win in my book.