Home Depot Chief Executive Frank Blake told investors last month he hoped the housing market had hit bottom.

On Tuesday, he said a turnaround is "close" but added, "I don't see it yet."

Keith Hadley (ENLARGE)

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"It's still a very tough market," said Blake, who appeared on CNBC's "Squawk Box" morning show in New York. It was Blake's first extended television interview since he became CEO in January 2007.

Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus also joined the show's three hosts, interviewing Blake and other guests. Marcus praised Blake for not cutting jobs, upgrading Home Depot stores and reviving a culture that he said had disappeared earlier in this decade.

"People love what they are doing," Marcus said. "The culture [co-founder Arthur Blank] and I created has come back."

Marcus, who stepped down as chairman of Home Depot in 2001, said morale was so low at the stores during the past few years of his tenure that he stopped going into them.

"What, you were going to Lowe's?" asked "Squawk Box" co-host Joe Kernan, referring to the archrival chain.

Marcus continued: It was a disaster. It was cost-cutting. It was getting rid of the most experienced people because they were the highest-paid.

Despite Home Depot's success in helping to create the DIY market segment, Marcus said the founders might not be able to repeat the feat today because of regulatory and economic constraints.

For one thing, Home Depot ran through most of its money within its first year of opening, and it hired on the promise of stock options, he noted.

"Think about going public with $25 million," Marcus said. "Our margins, they looked good, but we had no balance sheet."