Dave And Jenny Marrs On Balancing Vintage Aesthetics With Modern Necessities - Exclusive Interview

When you're sketching out a new layout, shopping for paint colors, or pinning dozens of inspirational images to your décor mood board, renovating a home can be an extremely exciting time, but that doesn't mean there won't be some stressful decisions along the way. Choosing how to renovate a home can be especially challenging when it comes to preserving historical details, modernizing only where necessary, and making sure everyone in the family feels included — even the pets! 

Leave it to expert designer Jenny Marrs and her contractor husband, Dave Marrs, to nail all aspects of a major renovation. Together, they've pulled off some of the most stunning home reveals in their HGTV series "Fixer to Fabulous." Whether a house needs a fresh coat of paint, a new set of cabinets, or a total floorplan shift, these married sweethearts know just the trick to turn any old, outdated "fixer" into a fabulous and refreshing home for their clients. In an exclusive interview with House Digest, Dave and Jenny Marrs shared some of their best tips for surviving the home renovation process, expanding spaces as the family grows, and retaining historic charm while giving essential features a modern update.

Congratulations on the launch of your new season of "Fixer to Fabulous." Could you give us a hint about what to expect in your most exciting season yet?

Jenny Marrs: We have all different projects, all different style homes, all different types of families. We have a barn that we convert into a house this season. We work on our own house this season, so it's our most personal one. We have a couple that gets married on the show this season — lots of fun stuff happening — great stories and beautiful remodels as well.

Dave Marrs: For the first time, we got to see our house that has never been renovated — which I know Jenny did not want the rest of the world to see, but it's okay. We have five kids and we live in a 100-year-old house, so it was time to do that.

Jenny, what features do you feel are a dead giveaway for a dated home, and what new trends are you embracing in Season 5 of "Fixer to Fabulous"?

Jenny: As far as dated, you can always tell [if] there are a lot of honey oak cabinets; you can tell by the countertop color. The lighting ... You can tell when a home was built, if it's a '90s home or '70s or whatnot ... Most kitchens and bathrooms are the things that date a home. Everything else is pretty standard.

As far as trends, I don't try to follow any sort of trend. When we design a home, when we're working with a family, I always try to embrace whatever that family wants. We do a lot of pre-work that you don't see on the show — meeting with the homeowners, getting a sense of what they like and what they don't like. They send me tons of photos. I have a board for each family. Each design is very customized to that family and to that home. That's what we've always done in our business, and that's what we've always done in our show and will always continue to do: try to customize homes to the families that live there.

You shared that your family's home is undergoing its own transformation. How is the progress coming along, and have you run into any unforeseen challenges?

Dave: We are still in the process of finishing our house. I promised Jenny that we would have it done before the holidays. Every day that we're not filming and not doing other projects — which is not many days — we're spending time here. Last night, the kids were taking showers and getting ready for bed, and I was putting cabinet hardware on the new living room furniture that we have. It's filling in and trying to get stuff done as quickly as we can.

We moved our house here about 10 years ago [and] saved it from being torn down. We did some renovation at that time, but our boys were twins. They were 4 years old, so they were sharing a room. Now they're 13 years old, so it doesn't really work anymore. What we do every day is try to make unique spaces fit a family as much as we can within that existing footprint. We're doing the same with our house. It's a challenge, but it's been fun reimagining how we use the space and what it can be.

Jenny: For unexpected things ... It's been really emotional because it's the first time we've renovated our home where we moved our house, then we renovated it five years later, and now we're renovating it again ... Five years ago was when I was pregnant with Luke, we renovated because we had to move everyone around, because we had a baby coming. We're in a new season of life where the kids are all growing up and it's happening so fast. They've outgrown their spaces, and we transformed the room that was a nursery for Charlotte, and a toddler room for Sylvie, and a nursery for Luke is now going to be our bedroom.

It's been more emotional than I expected it to be. We've renovated and built homes forever and we've moved a lot, but this is our home. I don't see us ever moving. This is a different season than we've ever had before, where the kids are getting bigger. It's been surprising how emotional the process itself has been for me as a mom.

In another interview, you mentioned that your kids often love to contribute their own design ideas. Sometimes kids have a creative vision that adults miss out on. Where are some of the places that you like to incorporate kids' suggestions?

Dave: Whenever we're doing — and a lot of times we're doing — homes for families, I love to have our kids included in the decision-making process, because if there's other kids, you can run things by Luke and Charlotte and Sylvie and the boys and ask them, "Hey, this kid is your age. What do you think they would like?" Definitely with kids — with animals as well. We renovated some unique homes this year [where] we had to include the furry friends and spaces for them. Kids are not afraid to think way outside the box, and sometimes, that's where you get the best ideas.

Jenny: We're shuffling kids around to different rooms because they've outgrown spaces, so they are involved in the choices of paint colors and light fixtures and layouts. I want them to feel like their spaces are their spaces. I want it to be something that they love, not what I love, especially now that they're getting older. When it's a nursery, it's for me. But once they get older and have opinions of their own, I want them to be involved in the process so that they can be creative and put their personal stamp on their space.

Jenny, as a designer, you're expected to keep a pulse on the latest interior design trends. At the same time, preserving a home's history and character is incredibly important to you. How do you balance modernizing certain spaces while keeping their historical charm?

Jenny: The biggest thing for a historic home is trying to figure out what the homeowner needs in the space. Make it work for the family, and then keep as many of the natural or original elements as you can. Whether it's trim work, doors ... I love old doors. A lot of times, they've been painted, so we like to strip them and bring them back to their natural wood and old original hardware on the doors. Anything that you can keep that's original in a house really adds that character, and it makes a big difference.

Try to keep as many original aspects as [you] can while updating everything else — modernizing appliances so that they function better, but then updating your cabinetry and all of that. To me, the kitchen is definitely always going to be the priority. But you can incorporate things like ... I like to incorporate handmade fixtures, handmade faucets, handmade lights, so that they feel vintage. They feel like they give a nod to the past, but they also function in a way that works for the modern family.

Do you have any advice for living in a home during a renovation?

Jenny: [laughs] Don't do it.

Dave: If you're going to do it, and a lot of people do, I would take a little bit more time than what we have to do it, and try to isolate off the area that you are renovating so that you can continue life as normal as possible. The dust and the dirt and tracking stuff in and out and the whole mess of it is ... Being a contractor for 20 years, we usually have people move out. You get that drywall dust, you get that paint overspray, you get all the stuff that a normal renovation would have, but then you clean everything before the homeowners move back in. Now, it's a nightly cleaning process with us. We're not fortunate enough where we can completely shut off a certain space of the house. But if that's at all possible, I would highly recommend it.

Jenny: I would say the same thing. Try to section off if you can, and have grace for the process because it's going to be a mess. It just is. You have to give yourself grace in the process ... Like Dave said, the hardest thing is the construction dust and feeling unsettled, not knowing where any of your stuff is, all of that. Go into it with an open mind that that's going to be challenging.

When it comes to restoring old, dilapidated homes, where's the first place you'd recommend spending a precious renovation budget?

Jenny: You have to prioritize the spaces and know that the most expensive space is going to be the kitchen. After that comes bathrooms. The way we've always done it in our own house is we've prioritized the main spaces — the kitchen, the living room, everybody's bedrooms. Bedrooms are fairly simple because it's just paint, for the most part, and lighting.

We're now doing our main bathroom. It's been 10 years, but that's not the space that anyone else sees. We're the only ones who see it, so we prioritized that last because that was our choice. But that's how we've always approached it.

If someone you knew wanted to launch their own home renovation business, where would you recommend that they start?

Dave: I would start by finding a mentor, someone who's already in the business. Contractors love to tell stories. They love to talk about what they've done and the best practices to get a job done and the mistakes that they've made. Find someone who's already done it, and you'll save yourself a lot of heartache.

"Fixer to Fabulous" starring Dave and Jenny Marrs returns to HGTV tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT. New episodes will be available to stream on Max and discovery+.

This interview has been edited for clarity.