Right, Let’s Set the Scene
Halfway through the season and it’s finally Kitchen Week, the one everyone’s been waiting for since Scotty first uttered the words “kitchens sell houses” back in episode one. Five teams, five completely different kitchens, and for the first time all season, everybody actually finished. No unfinished symphonies, no empty cabinet carcasses waiting for a miracle, just five rooms, all done, all styled, all ready for Darren to touch every surface like he’s never seen stone before.
But the real story of the week wasn’t the kitchens themselves, it was everything happening around them. Maddy and Charlotte inherited a kitchen they didn’t design and had about five minutes to make it feel like theirs. The girls in House 1 also torched their build team entirely, sacked their carpenter mid-week and rang roughly fifteen builders trying to find someone, anyone, to finish the job. Grant declared war on gyprock hoarding across the entire street. And P Penguin, Kylie and Brad’s long-suffering, perpetually snubbed bonus-point mascot, finally got played, and finally won something. Buckle up.
Final Score Card
| Rank | Team | Score | Judges’ Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 1st | Kylie & Brad | 29.5 (incl. penguin bonus point) | “This is Tom Ford meets James Bond.” |
| 🥈 2nd | Maddy & Charlotte | 29 | “They’ve hit it out of the park, without a doubt.” |
| 🥉 3rd | Courtney & Grant | 27 | “I’m besotted by the colour scheme… but I’m not being taken away here.” (judges split, Marty vs Darren/Shaynna) |
| 4th | Kristian & Mimi | 26.5 | “I like the kitchen but I don’t love the kitchen. It’s just not quite right.”, Marty |
| 5th | Ricky & Haydn | 23 | “This heart needs a little bit of a defibrillator.”, Shaynna |
Half a point. That’s the entire margin between first and second this week, and it came down to Kylie and Brad finally deciding, after weeks of Brad threatening to sulk “all day” if Kimberly didn’t get her way, sorry, if the penguin didn’t get played, to actually cash in their bonus point. Maddy and Charlotte, running a kitchen they never designed, somehow still nearly stole it. Meanwhile at the other end of the ladder, Ricky and Haydn are now five weeks deep into “just being the chumps” without a single room win, and the judges made sure they knew it.
Key Moments This Episode
- DRAMA Maddy and Charlotte’s carpenter Zak quit mid-week after being told he was “a little bit aggressive and a little bit intimidating,” and the girls fired back a builder team on the spot: “We’re gonna no longer work here with you guys.”
- DISASTER With a new room kicking off Monday and no builder, the girls rang roughly fifteen tradies cold, most hung up, one had “a kitchen reno to start Monday,” and they ended up scraping together three maybe-builders from nothing.
- ARGUMENT Dan busted Grant and Courtney over-ordering 42 sheets of gyprock and threatened a time penalty, prompting Grant to demand everyone else’s garages get audited too: “Why does Grant and Courtney always have to cop the punishment? Because we are.” Turns out House 3 and 4 were both hoarding sheets as well.
- DISASTER The missing-tap saga: two separate tap deliveries for House 1 both showed “failed to deliver” from Australia Post despite the gates being open, forcing ABI Interiors to fly a rep down from the Gold Coast with a literal bag of taps, arriving at 5:30am on reveal-eve.
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASE Courtney and Grant dropped roughly $8,000 on a single tap that does sparkling, hot, cold and filtered water, because apparently a normal tap wasn’t going to cut it for Kitchen Week.
- DRAMA House 3 no-showed pre-start entirely, “Where’s H been? He’s still in bed”, earning Officer Dan’s wrath and setting off the whole over-ordering witch-hunt.
- ARGUMENT Marty went rogue on Courtney and Grant’s kitchen while Darren and Shaynna raved, sparking an on-camera judges’ stoush: “Could not disagree with you more” / “I think you’re looking at a completely different kitchen to me.”
- DRAMA Brad threatened mutiny over the penguin point weeks in advance, “I won’t put any input, I’ll just sit around and sulk all day”, and by reveal night was vindicated, taking the win by half a point.
Maddy and Charlotte: Inheriting Someone Else’s Kitchen and Nailing It Anyway
Spare a thought for Maddy and Charlotte. Their very first “official” week on the show and it’s Kitchen Week, except they didn’t design a single element of it. Jesse and Paige picked every finish back in Week 2 before they left, meaning the newbies rocked up to find a kitchen that had already been decided for them, tapware and all. “Have you guys seen the actual plans? ‘Cause they didn’t pick this, did they? Well, that’s their problem,” was about the level of enthusiasm going around when the product started arriving. The tap saga alone would have broken lesser contestants, two deliveries “failed” despite the gates being wide open, forcing ABI Interiors to charter a staff member down from the Gold Coast with a literal bag of tapware at 5:30am the morning of reveal.
And yet. The judges walked in and lost it. Quartzite stone, oak joinery, a butler’s pantry-free layout that Darren applauded for its restraint, and styling so on-point Shaynna said the girls had “nothing to worry about” despite spending all week worried. Scotty even gave Jesse and Paige a shout-out mid-reveal, sitting on their couch at home, for the kitchen they never got to see finished.
“Jesse and Paige would’ve put so much thought and effort into this, and, you know, I feel for them that they’re not here because this is absolutely stunning.”
Marty called it a triple-ten result before reveal even happened, and near enough he was right, 29 points, second place, and a legitimate scare put into the eventual winners. Not bad for a kitchen they didn’t even choose.
Courtney and Grant: The Modern-Terranean That Split the Judging Panel in Half
Courtney and Grant went all-in on “modern Mediterranean,” complete with a curved feature wall, a four-metre island, and an $8,000 tap dispensing sparkling, filtered, hot and cold water because regular taps are for people who don’t want their reserve price questioned. Darren and Shaynna practically needed a cold shower, Shaynna literally said she was “salivating” over the porcelain Cosentino stone, dribbling included. Marty, on the other hand, was not having any of it.
“When I walk in here, I don’t see how this is modern-terranean… They aren’t actually blowing anyone away, particularly myself.”, Marty
“Could not disagree with you more.”, Shaynna, immediately after Marty’s takedown
It got so heated the judges started arguing with each other rather than the contestants, with Marty griping about only three stools for a large-scale kitchen and demanding to know why the Viola marble from the bathrooms never made it to the kitchen. Darren and Shaynna shrugged it off and moved on, “I don’t want to hear any more.” Split panel, split scores, and a third-place finish that could easily have been higher if Marty had been in a better mood. Also worth noting: this is the same week Grant tried to nominate himself as the site’s new gyprock sheriff after getting busted over-ordering by 42 sheets.
Ricky and Haydn: The Kitchen That Needed a Defibrillator
Five weeks without a room win and the boys threw everything at Kitchen Week to break the drought, including a 2:30am painting session and a genuinely clever move from builder Dunc, swapping to a TRUECORE steel sub-floor to save an estimated eight to ten grand. They finished. They were proud. “This feels like hands-down the best room that we’ve delivered,” Ricky said, walking away feeling like a winner regardless of the scores.
The judges disagreed. Violently. Darren and Marty both flagged the appliances jammed into a major thoroughfare as one of the worst kitchen sins going, and then Shaynna took the styling out the back and shot it.
“Those flowers are so wrong. They look like they’ve come out of the bin and you’ve put them in the vase.”
“It’s not a functioning kitchen and it doesn’t get the heart fluttering… this heart needs a little bit of a defibrillator.”
Darren did throw them a bone on the walk-through pantry, calling it “elevated and chic,” but a plain white cupboard door with no profile (“it just looks like the stuff you get off the shelf”) sealed the deal. Last place, 23 points, and a very apologetic Scotty at the end: “I liked your kitchen, for what it’s worth.”
Kylie and Brad: Tom Ford Meets James Bond Meets the Penguin Point
The quietest week on the build site belonged to the eventual winners. Kylie and Brad called it “a very relaxed week” thanks to a smaller layout, and instead poured their energy into dark, moody, ultra-matte black cabinetry with a gold sink and tap, plus a professionally styled pantry courtesy of a Kinsman chocolate wheel win. Darren walked in and just about proposed on the spot.
“Is this Tom Ford enough for ya?… This is sultry. This is moody, sexy. It feels very expensive.”, Darren
Even the FurnSpin cabinet that Darren initially dinged for missing a glasses cupboard turned out to have a hidden bar built in, cue an on-camera retraction and a “James Bond meets Tom Ford” declaration once the secret panel swung open. Marty’s only real gripe was fridge placement, five steps from the kitchen’s central hub, and a Phillip-Island-mid-century green oven that didn’t quite match the stools. Minor stuff. And after weeks of Brad threatening to sulk if the penguin point didn’t get played, they finally pulled the trigger, and it delivered exactly 0.5 of a point, which happened to be the entire margin of victory.
“We are so lucky… I was not gonna let the girls get it over us. I’m salty about that. So, yes, I will take the win over them, thank you.”
Kristian and Mimi: Shrek’s Kitchen Divides the Judges
Kristian and Mimi’s kitchen build has been a saga since Week 2, when they chose a bold green oven and cooktop and immediately regretted it. “I’m hating this green now. I just can’t see it working,” Mimi said at the time, comparing it to Shrek. By reveal, the U-turn was complete: “It was a massive U-turn. We completely hated it at the start, and now it’s our favourite part of our house.” Fancy Shrek and Princess Fiona, as they now call themselves, went all in on a triple-stacked stone benchtop, walnut cabinetry and a splashback window looking out to the pool.
Darren was smitten, “Kristian and Mimi don’t let us down, do they?… Yum, yum, yum, yum”, but Marty flatly did not get the memo.
“This triple stack, for me, it actually looks like a mistake… I like the kitchen but I don’t love the kitchen. It’s just not quite right.”, Marty
Marty also flagged the green oven as “polarising for the buyers” and the fridge as too far from the action, dragging what could’ve been a top-two finish down to a mid-pack 26.5 points. With four room wins already on the board this season, this was the week the run finally cooled off.
How It All Wrapped Up
Kylie and Brad took the win by the narrowest possible margin after finally playing the long-threatened penguin bonus point; Maddy and Charlotte proved that inheriting someone else’s kitchen is no excuse for a near-perfect reveal; Courtney and Grant split the judging panel down the middle with a moody, expensive-looking Mediterranean number that Marty just couldn’t get on board with; Kristian and Mimi’s love-hate relationship with their green Shrek oven finally cost them, dropping them to fourth; and Ricky and Haydn, despite genuinely finishing on time for once, walked away needing a defibrillator and five straight weeks without a win. Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and we’ll see you back here for the next disaster.
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