Nearly a year after tornadoes ripped through Northwest Arkansas, forcing Dave and Jenny Marrs‘ family of seven to hide out in a tiny closet on May 26, 2024, the HGTV stars are excited to reveal one of their favorite happy-ending stories from that “very scary” night. While their farmhouse escaped major damage, many families in the area were not as lucky.
In the season six finale of “Fixer to Fabulous,” airing on April 8, 2025, the Marrs will swoop in to help a local family, the Ludwigs, who were “desperate for the home they raised their babies in to be HOME again,” Jenny wrote on Instagram before the episode premiered, noting how “terrifying” it was for their home to be destroyed in an instant.
The way the Marrs’ building partners came together to rebuild the Ludwigs’ home even better than before, the couple told EntertainmentNOW, was nothing short of “amazing.”
Jenny Marrs Says Their Quick Turnaround on Tornado-Damaged Home Was ‘Very Unusual’
The April 8 episode will feature the last of several transformations the Marrs completed during season six for families impacted by the Memorial Day weekend tornadoes, which Jenny told EntertainmentNOW were “really special” to work on.
“The tornadoes that hit in May really just destroyed a lot of our community and the rebuilding process is still going on,” she said, noting that there was greater urgency “because it wasn’t just remodeling for the sake of making them prettier, but actually getting them back into their homes.”
Crushed by a fallen tree that landed “directly where the husband had been sleeping not minutes before,” the Ludwigs’ home, Jenny said, was unlivable and required extensive remodeling.
“When a house is destroyed by a tree, you’re looking at a nine-month process,” Dave told EntertainmentNOW. “These people had been displaced.”
The Marrs didn’t want the family to have to wait that long, so they called on some of their renovation partners, including Cornerstone Building Brands, and were thrilled by the response.
Dave explained, “Cornerstone Building Brands was like, ‘With windows and siding … we’ll make the time. We’ll make the time crunch work. We’ll get you all the product that you need for this.’ And so to have partners like that, (who) kind of come beside you and get these projects done in the time frame that we have? To do that is amazing.”
Jenny agreed, “Getting windows and siding as quickly as we were able to get them is pretty amazing and very unusual. So it was awesome.”
Dave & Jenny Marrs Say Part of Their Mission Moving Forward is to Reflect Joy & Hope
Beyond the structural fixes to the Ludwigs’ home — from siding to windows to a new roof — Jenny wrote on Instagram that they also found ways to make the home “cozy and warm and also a bit playful — because these two exude joy despite circumstances.”
Reflecting joy is a big part of the Marrs’ mission, they told EntertainmentNOW, noting that they’ve never wanted “Fixer to Fabulous” to just be about revealing a “before and after” of a remodeled home.
As they begin filming a seventh seven for HGTV, Jenny said, “We’re really trying to make sure the homes and the projects we choose are unique and interesting, but also that we are able to tell some good stories that are encouraging and hopeful. Because, you know, there’s a lot of hard things in the world, and we want our show to be something that people can turn on and feel joy when they watch.”
Dave agreed, saying that moving forward, they plan to “tell some incredible stories of people that are doing great things, people that have gone through tough challenges, but are still striving to move forward.”
With that as their focus, he added, “Maybe we can make this world a little bit smaller and community a little bit stronger, because I think we could all use that.”
HGTV’s season six finale of “Fixer to Fabulous” premieres on April 8 at 8 p.m. Eastern time. It will also be available to stream on Max, and will re-air on HGTV on April 19 and May 14, at 5 p.m. Eastern time on both days.
Comments
Dave & Jenny Marrs Rush to Help ‘Desperate’ Local Family (EXCLUSIVE)