Italiano’ Is the Marrs’ Most Challenging Project [Interview]

The Big Picture

• Jenny and Dave faced extreme challenges remodeling an old property in Italy.
• Language barriers in Italy proved to be a major obstacle for the couple.
• Despite the difficulties, the cultural exchange and family moments made the experience worthwhile.

Fixer to Fabulous has been one of HGTV’s top offerings since it premiered in January 2020.The reality series follows married couple Jenny and Dave Marrs as they renovate homes across the country that are in desperate need of a makeover. Dave is a general contractor and craftsman, so he handles the construction aspect of the renovations, while Jenny is an interior designer who adds the fabulous into the fixes. The couple have faced all kinds of challenges in each season of the hit show, but now, they’ve faced their biggest home renovation challenge to date.

Fixer to Fabulous: Italiano follows Jenny and Dave as they travel to Italy to renovate a property in the Tuscan countryside. But this isn’t a standard home; this property was built, at minimum, three centuries ago and is possibly older than that. The land is owned by two close friends of Jenny and Dave, and they spent their life savings on the property to start up their new business. Thanks to this, there is an added level of stress, as Jenny and Dave want to make sure they set their friends up for success, or they could lose everything. The pressure was already on, but there were even more challenges awaiting the couple that they could never have anticipated. Unexpected red tape, weather, and language barriers made this experience somewhat chaotic. But would Jenny and Dave ever consider doing a project like this again? Collider had the opportunity to sit down with the Fixer to Fabulous couple to learn more about their time working in Italy and to get an answer to that very question.

Jenny and Dave’s Italian Voyage Had Multiple Stress Factors

Remodeling a home is no easy feat, and Jenny and Dave have never shied away from those challenges on Fixer to Fabulous. However, taking the show to Italy added difficulties they never could have imagined. When asked about the challenges they faced, Jenny shared: “I think the fact that it was [for] our friends, number one, but also the production schedule…being on a tight production schedule made it even harder because there’s pressure from production, then there’s pressure from the homeowners who are our friends, there’s pressure from the building team– like there’s just pressure all around.”

Dave echoed Jenny’s statement, adding: “I mean, just something as simple as, if Jenny needs something, I can go out into my shop or, I can go get the materials and I can build, and I can do it. We’re so lucky here that we kind of create our own schedule because we know what we can do. That’s part of what made this experience so unique.”

Jenny and Dave did not have access to their usual channels in a country where English is not the first language. Jenny shared that their Italian wasn’t where they’d hoped it would be when they began the project. She said, “We can understand pretty well, but we were never there for long chunks [of time]. We were always [traveling] back and forth. So, I feel like as soon as we were there, and we’d sort of get settled, we’re getting back into our stride. Then we’d come home and lose everything. And we tried to practice, you know? We had apps and those kinds of things, but there’s nothing like being there and hearing conversations and being a part of conversations and learning that way. We even had a tutor at one point, but we kept forgetting to do our homework because we were so busy. So, we have a long way to go. It’s a never-ending process for us. We’re not great at learning new languages, apparently [laughs].” One phrase they both picked up on quickly was “andiamo”, which means “let’s go.”

Language barrier aside, there were also issues the couple never would have imagined. When discussing their challenges, Dave also said: “I mean [Italians]– you can’t offer them double or triple time to work on a holiday because they’re going to spend it with their family. They don’t care about the extra money. Here in America, money is a big driver of getting stuff done. And there it’s not. At all. It’s just not the priority, and I think we could learn something from that. But it makes it really hard when you’re trying to get a project done.”

Jenny echoed this, saying: “Dave being on the job site, not having his normal tools, [and] not being the one in charge, because he doesn’t even speak the language. So having to ask [for] permission and then find someone to translate, and then ask if somebody could do something.” Jenny and Dave faced a lot of unexpected red tape during the process, as they weren’t simply working on a house but a property with a centuries-old history. Thanks to this, they had to get permission from the local government to do even the simplest things.

‘Fixer to Fabulous: Italiano’s Challenges Only Increased as Time Went On

It seemed as if there were too many challenges to make the project worth it, but Jenny and Dave didn’t see it that way. For them, the experience was once in a lifetime, and for a variety of reasons. The history, for example. Dave shared: “This house, they think, is three to four hundred years old. I mean, we were pulling apart these three-foot-thick stone walls and taking terracotta that had been used for spacers that were another two or three hundred years older than those had been put in during the remodel. Every stone that came out of that house was a stone that was farmed from that area that was used to build that house. It was then put in a pile that was put back into the house in a different way, and it was fit in perfectly. This perfectly imperfect way and so, the process of getting to work on something that old and seeing how the true craftsman over there– how they do that was pretty neat.” This cultural exchange wasn’t the only thing that made the experience worthwhile.

When asked how they handled the stress of the project, Jenny chuckled and said: “Lots of pasta and lots of wine.” The true thing that helped Jenny and Dave cope with the stress was being able to have their whole family together while working on the remodel. She went on to say: “In the summer, it was really rejuvenating to have [our kids] there. At the end of the day, we had these big dinners together along with our friends who were doing the house for them and their kids. And that was just like, those memories were so special, and it made it an amazing experience.”

Dave added to this, sharing: “I got to take my kids to the top of a mountain and pick out Carrera Marble [from] the same place Michelangelo picked it out 400 years ago, and they’re still quarrying from this same spot. To sit up there with our kids and have them look and say, ‘Dad, how did they do this? How did they get this marble down the mountain and into Rome?’ It’s really a miracle. And we got to experience some things that I don’t know the majority of people would ever get to experience. So yeah, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.” With all of those factors in mind, they went on to share that they’d happily work on another international project in the future. Jenny said, “We’ll always go back and forth [to Italy], but to be able to work over there is a dream. We would definitely do it again.”

Fixer to Fabulous: Italiano premiered on Tuesday, March 12, at 8 PM ET on HGTV. Streaming is also available on Discovery+Watch on Discovery+