Jesse and Paige Are Out, the Newbies Are In, and Main Bedroom Week Ends in a Photo Finish

Right, Let’s Set the Scene

Well, that’s a way to start an episode. Jesse and Paige are gone, walked off The Block for their mental health, hugs all round, Scotty Cam looking like he’s aged a decade in real time. “Nothing’s more important than your mental health,” he tells them, which is true and also very inconvenient, because House One still has a 30-square-metre main bedroom and walk-in robe due in less than 24 hours and now literally nobody is home to build it.

Enter Maddy (24) and Charlotte (22), the youngest contestants in Block history, thrown into the deep end with less than a day’s notice and a ditched plasterer for a welcome gift. Meanwhile everyone else is white-knuckling through the biggest rooms of the season so far, 30-plus square metres, four-metre ceilings, “a lot of plaster, a lot of paint, and a lot of work,” as Scotty so eloquently puts it. Add a bonus one-point penguin still floating around unclaimed and you’ve got yourself a genuinely tense Sunday.

Final Score Card

Rank	Team	Score	Judges’ Verdict
🥇 1st (tie)	Courtney & Grant	28	“This is THE most marketable room so far on The Block.”, Darren Palmer
🥇 1st (tie)	Kristian & Mimi	28	“This takes my breath away. It absolutely takes my breath away.”, Shaynna Blaze
🥈 2nd	Kylie & Brad	27.5	“I am so in love with this.”, Darren Palmer
🥉 3rd	Maddy & Charlotte	24.5	“Look at two people that started on Wednesday and they’ve got this? This is insane!”, Darren Palmer
4th	Ricky & Haydn	21.5	“I wish that I could give them a good score this week, with a finished room. I can’t.”, Marty Fox

Half a point. That’s the margin the judges were sweating over before they threw their hands up and called it a straight-up tie between House Two and House Five, splitting the ten grand five each. Kylie and Brad, meanwhile, are left kicking themselves, they’re the ones sitting on an unused bonus penguin worth a single, tie-breaking point. Offload that penguin, kids. Everyone said it. Nobody listened.

Maddy and Charlotte: Three Days, One Disaster Plasterer, and an 8.5

Imagine turning up to a competitive renovation show on a Wednesday, being told you’re now House One, and finding out your plasterer has ghosted you at 10pm the night before judging. That’s the week Maddy and Charlotte had. They spent the morning doing what Charlotte accurately called “the rounds to beg”, ringing every plasterer on Phillip Island and being told no by all of them, before Sam from Getting You Plastered took pity and gave them an hour, and a couple of legends named Jayden wandered over from next door to help finish the job.

Somehow it worked. They didn’t finish spraying paint until 6am, “it’s a bad day to be an unpainted wall,” as one of them put it, and still turned up for a 9am reveal with a room the judges genuinely couldn’t believe. Darren Palmer walked in going, “look at two people that started on Wednesday and they’ve got this? This is insane!” and Marty Fox floated the idea that the newbies could go all the way. Shaynna had notes on proportion, low chairs under a huge ceiling, wall sconces too high, but the overall verdict was a stunned Sunday morning shrug and a genuinely impressive 8.5 from Darren alone. Not bad for a couple of accountants who arrived with 24 hours’ notice and a hot chocolate delivery.

“Look at two people that started on Wednesday and they’ve got this? This is insane!”

Courtney and Grant: The Grantrum, the Fireplace, and the Rug of Shame

Courtney and Grant bit off more than most humans could chew, archways, curves, a skylight, a feature wall, recessed curtains, a Porta panelled back wall, and the only fireplace on The Block this week, and Dan basically told them so to their faces. Their response was some combination of denial and defiance, plus one spectacular meltdown from Grant, who copped a proper “Grantrum” mid-build, snapping “stop (BLEEP) around and go and clean the (BLEEP) window or do something” before storming off. Twice. Courtney’s read on it: “you get really angry quickly and then a couple of minutes later you’re over it. But this is not therapy.”

Chaos aside, the room absolutely floored the judges. Darren called it “THE most marketable room so far on The Block” and Shaynna needed a moment: “this takes my breath away.” Marty was so taken he half-joked about asking Channel 9 if he could bid on the house himself. The wardrobe fared just as well, “that palette is just divine”, but the room wasn’t flawless. Darren singled out a rug on the floor for public shaming: “everything in here is excellent except for that… it’s facing the naughty corner.” And on the fake-flame fireplace they were so proud of? “I really do not like fake flames in a fire.” Still, a 28-point tie for first is a 28-point tie for first.

“This is THE most marketable room so far on The Block.”

Ricky and Haydn: The Carpet Mix-Up That Cost Them Everything

Ricky and Haydn’s week can be summed up in one sentence: they ordered the wrong flooring and never recovered. A miscommunication meant carpet turned up for a main bedroom they’d always planned to have floorboards in, and by the time it got sorted it had cost them two to three precious hours, hours they desperately needed. Add a genuinely eyebrow-raising moment where one of the boys stripped off mid-sand and told a producer “it’s (BLEEP) hot in here” (please, someone, put some clothes back on), and you’ve got a build that never quite got out of its own way.

Which is a shame, because what they did finish was genuinely good, the ceiling, the Shou Sugi Ban feature wall, a giant mirror and a Shaynna-approved palm wallpaper all landed well. But no sheers, no doona cover, pillows “just shoved” on the bed, and a wall that hadn’t even been painted meant the judges could only imagine what might have been. Darren put it best: “I can see in my imagination what this looks like resolved and complete, but I’m disappointed that I have to use my imagination to do that.” Marty was even blunter about the score. Last place, 21.5, and a growing sense that this team just cannot catch a break.

“I wish that I could give them a good score this week, with a finished room. I can’t.”

Kylie and Brad: The Truss, the Turnaround, and the Missing Penguin

Kylie and Brad’s week started with a full-blown facepalm, downlights drilled straight through a roof truss, punching a hole clean through their freshly installed Grafico wallpaper. Brad’s reaction was pure dad-at-the-end-of-his-tether: “I’m not going to do (BLEEP) all about it. But it better get fixed.” It got fixed, sort of, a patched hole and a lot of praying nobody would notice, before Brad and an apprentice electrician physically climbed into the roof cavity to triple-check every remaining hole so it never happened again.

Then came the payoff for Kylie’s season-long stubbornness. Her “never been used on The Block before” metallic gold coffered ceiling, “it’s important because I’m stubborn as hell and… I know what I want”, turned an early-season critic into a convert. Shaynna, who by her own admission was one of Kylie’s harshest judges in the first few weeks, was suddenly gushing: “I am over the moon for them… this is what they were aiming for, I am sure of it.” Darren said flatly, “I am so in love with this,” and Marty called it “personality.” Minor gripes about a too-far light switch and asymmetric bedside lamps aside, 27.5 points is a huge result, and it would have been enough to win outright if they’d had the sense to cash in their bonus penguin.

“It’s important because I’m stubborn as hell and… I know what I want.”

Kristian and Mimi: The Hot Streak Keeps Rolling (and So Does the Gucci)

Three wins from four weeks and Kristian and Mimi are running so hot the rest of the houses might as well start planning for second place. Their whole philosophy is “emotional connection”, Mimi’s words, delivered with the confidence of someone who has clearly never lost an argument about cushion colours, and this week that meant a sandy, ochre, coastal main bedroom with Porta timber floor to ceiling and a bedhead sourced from former winners Steph and Gian’s own furniture line. Oh, and they collected their Week Four winnings mid-build too: a $10,000 Gucci dress and earrings, plus $10,000 worth of Hafele wardrobe fittings, including a $300 coat hanger that Mimi wore about as proudly as the dress.

The judges walked in and more or less lost their minds. “What the actual hell?” from Darren. “This takes my breath away. It absolutely takes my breath away,” from Shaynna, who then had to be told to calm down. Marty called it “by far the most hotel-like room” of the day. The only real criticism was a light switch too far from the bed and an asymmetric single bedside lamp, a mix-up caused, brilliantly, by Kristian plugging one in and Mimi immediately relocating it to the bathroom. Twenty-eight points and a share of first place. Mimi’s verdict: “that is a ten.”

“This takes my breath away. It absolutely takes my breath away.”

How It All Wrapped Up

Courtney and Grant proved chaos and a Grantrum can still produce the most marketable room on the block. Kristian and Mimi kept their hot streak alive with a hotel-worthy bedroom and a fresh haul of Gucci and Hafele swag. Kylie and Brad turned a drilled-through truss and years of styling scepticism into a near-win, and would have taken it outright with one unused penguin. Maddy and Charlotte somehow turned a ditched plasterer and 24 hours’ notice into an 8.5 from Darren Palmer. And Ricky and Haydn’s carpet mix-up cost them the win, the finish, and the last-place trophy nobody wants.

Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and we’ll see you back here for the next disaster.