Domain week has landed on Domain‘s favourite reality show, which means one thing above all else: every house is about to be judged by 100 complete strangers instead of just three very opinionated industry professionals. Before that happens, though, there’s a kids bedroom to finish (the last interior room of the season, for anyone still counting), a stack of redo rooms to salvage from last week’s feedback, and apparently a dishwashing crisis serious enough to end friendships. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Scott Cam also wants everyone’s stairwell painted, and he is not in the mood to negotiate.
Domain’s Alice Stolz arrived on site to lay out the stakes: a listing and buyers jury open house, Thursday night, 100 real potential buyers walking through, all voting on which home they’d actually want to live in. On the table is $50,000 cash, the cover of Domain magazine, and lunch with Alice at Polperro Winery. On the clock is four days to turn five construction sites into display homes, on top of a kids bedroom each and, for most teams, a redo room the judges specifically ordered after last week’s reveal.
The redo assignments landed like a report card nobody wanted: House One (Adam and Jolene) back into their week one bedroom, House Two (Chantel and Wyatt) and House Four (Courtney and Sev) both into living and dining, House Three (Lisa and Rosco) into their guest bedroom after judges said it “feels like a bad hotel,” and House Five (Rick and Tayla) also into living and dining after their layout was called a runway with a dance floor at the end of it. Freedom’s Kirsty turned up to help, and immediately told Chantel and Wyatt what they didn’t want to hear: flip the TV toward the view. “We’re not flipping the TV,” came the reply, twice, with the enthusiasm of two people who have said it a hundred times already this season and intend to say it a hundred more.
Over at House Four, Courtney and Sev’s redo leans hard on a bronze-tinted, panelled mirror wall that looks suspiciously like the one Lisa and Rosco built in House One, a resemblance Courtney addressed head-on rather than around: “I’d like to say that we’re not copying House One, but some of the changes we’re looking at implementing maybe are seen as copying, whereas I see it as inspiration.” Meanwhile Adam’s stairwell still wasn’t painted, which matters a great deal when foreman Dan won’t let the actual staircase go in until it is, and no staircase means 100 buyers can’t get upstairs on Thursday night. House Two, for its part, has all but conceded the room of the week race, reasoning the judges don’t like their colour palette anyway, and House Five is still hunting for whoever left a “brick spade” lying around their own bombsite of a site.
The kids bedrooms brought a rare moment of unity: bright, neutral, and built to double as a teenager’s room, a home office, or in House One’s case, several different rooms depending on which day of the week you asked Adam and Jolene, who pivoted from a native bush mural to a home gym to, finally, an “adult child” space with shelving for a desk. Lisa and Rosco are building a kids oasis inspired by their own son Lando, complete with bunk beds and an Australiana reading nook. Courtney and Sev are chasing a curvy custom bedhead borrowed, with permission this time, from their own charity house build.
None of it stopped the real fight of the day, which was about washing up. House Two’s habit of clearing only their own plates from family dinner and heading straight to the gym finally boiled over, with Jolene tipping out half a tub of someone else’s protein powder in protest and a passive-aggressive kitchen note reading “you need to clean your bowls” getting the reply “eat my ass.” Cam called it plainly: the Blockheads have never been more divided. Courtney and Sev, fresh off their fourth room win and a winner’s dinner at the Lancemore Lindenderry Estate, spent the night fielding pointed questions from Scott Cam about whether their unfinished door and missing skirting really deserved a ten, while quietly sitting on a shot at the show’s all-time room win record.
Key Moments Today
- ARGUMENTFreedom’s Kirsty and the judges both tell Chantel and Wyatt to flip their TV toward the water view. “We’re not flipping the TV,” they say, twice, and mean it.
- DRAMAThe dishwashing feud escalates from ruffled feathers to spilled protein powder to a kitchen note reading “you need to clean your bowls,” answered with “eat my ass.”
- DISASTERAdam’s stairwell still isn’t painted, and foreman Dan won’t install the actual staircase until it is, putting 100 Thursday-night buyers at risk of never reaching the top floor.
- DRAMACourtney and Sev’s new mirror wall lands close enough to Lisa and Rosco’s House One feature that Courtney pre-empts the copying accusation herself, live on camera.
Thursday night is when it all gets marked for real, by a jury of 100 people who don’t care about defects lists or who painted whose door. Until then, it’s stairwells, mirror walls, and a group chat that’s presumably gone very quiet.
