The history is the thing for the Marrses on ‘Fixer to Fabulous’
For Dave Marrs, there’s nothing like cutting into the wall of a century-old home or building and seeing how things were done back then. It’s a construction history lesson and a source of excitement as he and wife Jenny restore historic northwest Arkansas homes on HGTV’s “Fixer to Fabulous.”
“I just love the way things used to be built,” he explains. “I love opening up walls and seeing like the craftsmanship of a century ago, how they did things and how it’s still just so strong and well done. And you go back to the Northeast or over to Europe where you have a lot of that really old history – I mean, here in Arkansas we don’t have a ton of it. So anytime we’re able to preserve and save some of those buildings, it’s really special to both of us.”
Season 4, which currently airs Tuesdays, finds the Marrses once again working their magic on a mix of historic and modern houses in their hometown of Bentonville. On the newer side, there was the ranch home they renovated for an Olympic athlete and his family in the season premiere, where they turned part of an oversized garage into a master suite. And for older homes, there is the remodel they did of an old barn for a family that allowed them to use their imaginations to create individual spaces for the adults, children and houseguests.
And then there is the project they’re doing for themselves, a former bank built in 1905 that they’re renovating to use for one of their own businesses, basically restoring it to what it was more than a century ago.
And like a lot of things back then, they learned this building was way overbuilt.
“Oh, a hundred percent. Yep, they were,” he says. I mean, the walls downstairs are – I believe it’s five bricks thick. So I mean, they’re probably 20-inch-thick walls on the downstairs of this building and we just don’t do stuff like that anymore. So it’s really neat to see that old history uncovered and brought back to life.“