Every kitchen on site was looking pretty good on Tuesday, right up until someone asked the obvious question: what’s actually holding your stone splashback up? Turns out, for four out of five houses, the honest answer was “hope.” Kitchen week rolls on, and the cracks are starting to show somewhere other than the plasterboard.
Key Moments Today
- DISASTEREvery house except Chantel and Wyatt’s discovers their stone splashback walls were lined with plain plasterboard instead of structural Cemintel, sending teams scrounging for spare sheets from each other’s sites hours before Kinsman’s install.
- ARGUMENTWyatt and the site manager clash over pallet space for the incoming Kinsman cabinetry, with plaster blocking the way: “It’s not my problem… don’t ask me dumb questions.”
- DRAMARick and Tayla’s backlit stone splashback, their self-declared secret weapon for a ten, has no specifications sent to the electricians with install day looming: “We need specs urgently.”
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASEThe Blockheads are hauled off-site for zorb ice soccer worth $10,000, and Adam wins it for Team Red by bouncing a penalty shot off goalkeeper Robby’s own helmet.
The morning starts with cabinetry finally craning in, and Chantel and Wyatt are the envy of the street, already three houses ahead with Kinsman fitting their kitchen while everyone else waits on flooring. Lisa isn’t so lucky: she wakes with a splitting headache after overdoing the installation work the day before, prompting a rare rest day while Rosco carries the site solo. Jolene, meanwhile, heads into the city for a Schots homewares run and gets more than she bargained for, a piece of carpet underlay flies off a van two cars ahead on the freeway and very nearly turns her last shopping trip into her last trip, full stop.
Back on site, the real story is underground, or rather, behind the tiles. Someone finally asks Chantel and Wyatt’s chippy where their splashback substrate is, and the answer ripples through every house within the hour: stone needs Cemintel, a compressed structural board, not the plasterboard every team except House Two has been happily screwing to the wall all week. Adam and Jolene’s crew begs, borrows and scavenges 9mm sheets from anywhere they can find them, only to discover their own chippy has none either. It’s the kind of curveball that turns a good day into, in Adam’s words, “a hot mess,” and by evening he’s not the only one saying it.
Downtown, Rick and Tayla’s paperwork problem is its own slow-motion disaster. Their backlit stone splashback, the one feature they’re banking on for a perfect score, has apparently been designed without anyone telling the electricians what “backlit” actually requires. Frantic calls go out mid-afternoon chasing specs that were meant to be sent days ago, with Tayla insisting “it’s coming” to a site team that’s increasingly unconvinced. It’s the kind of gap between ambition and admin that’s become a running theme in House Five’s kitchen.
The afternoon brings a welcome distraction: former Blockheads Robby and Mat, and Sonny and Alicia, roll into the share house to reminisce and needle Scott Cam about last year’s Daylesford season, before everyone’s shipped off to Melbourne’s O’Brien Icehouse for zorb ice soccer, sponsored by Chemist Warehouse, for a $10,000 prize. Between the trip, Robby announces baby number two is on the way, and back on the ice, Team Red scrapes a scrappy win before Adam beats professional-footballer-turned-goalkeeper Robby in the penalty shootout, sinking the winner off the crossbar of Robby’s own discarded helmet. Back at the share house that night, ALDI supplies the celebratory barbecue.
Splashbacks scrambled, specs still missing in House Five, and $10,000 richer in House One. Wednesday brings waterproofing day and the last real chance to claw back lost time before Sunday’s judging. Back tomorrow.
