Joanna Gaines Transforms Rose Cottage

Joanna Gaines is taking a break to “pause, press and remember”—and she’s doing it in style.

The Fixer Upper star gave a tour of her newly revamped rose cottage in the fall issue of Magnolia Journal.

Gaines, 46, shares in the latest issue that one of her favorite parts of her and husband Chip Gaines’ 40-acre dream property is their rose garden. When they first purchased the Waco, Texas, estate in 2012, they built a potting shed for the rose garden. However, after a dozen years, the space needed some sprucing: She began using it as a storage space and utilized a different potting shed in her larger garden elsewhere on the property.

“I want to preserve all that we’ve planted, cultivated, and reaped each season—to capture the wonder that captured us,” she wrote. “Recently, I decided to return to that decade-old rose garden and shed and give it a new purpose. I wanted it to serve as a dedicated place to do what my family and I have been doing for years: to press flowers as a way to pause, document, and savor what we’ve grown together.”

Joanna and Chip’s rose garden potting shed got a complete overhaul into what she dubbed their “rose cottage,” complete with a new roof inspired by a recent family trip to South Korea. The makeover features deep hunter green painted walls, black and cream patterned tile floors, gold fixtures, rich wooden countertops, farmhouse-style furniture, greenery throughout, and bright windows to let in natural light.

Now, instead of potting plants, Joanna has a new use for the rose cottage, but plants are still involved. It now serves as “a haven” to store tools, as well as arrange and press flowers and plants.

The rose cottage is part of the autumn theme of “attune,” which focuses on raising one’s awareness within their life and space, and adjusting and acclimating accordingly. For Joanna, it means taking a break to embrace the now and figure out where she wants to go next—instead of just going nonstop.

“I’m making a promise, and I’m forcing myself to pause, purposefully, for the next little while,” she wrote in her fall 2024 editor’s letter. “For me, it begins with pulling back in some areas at the office. Because, the truth is, I love to work. Discipline, for me, isn’t getting to the office by 8 a.m. Discipline, for me, is going in late.”

One part of Joanna’s efforts to embrace the now is to preserve it: Within her rose cottage, she created an herbarium, a collection of dried and pressed plants mounted on paper. She began filling her own leather-bound book of pressed flowers and plants from their garden to someday leave to her children.

“A true scientific herbarium may be used for cataloging,” she penned, “but mine is more for capturing memories.”

Joanna’s herbarium and rose cottage tie into her theme of “attune” and the rush fall can bring: It’s often the busiest time of year for many but also goes by the fastest.

“It’s a place where, in the midst of our active, changing landscape, I can almost freeze time and document the gifts our garden gives us—the blooms, the lessons, the memories. Yes, the garden moves on. But maybe, in this act of remembering, we won’t,” she wrote. “Not without first taking hold of the beauty.”