Three days out from the living, dining and alfresco week reveal, and Mount Eliza finally produced a genuine miracle: a fireplace that got signed off before dinner. After five design versions, 158 phone calls, four site walkouts and, by Tayla’s own count, zero apologies, House Five’s fireplace saga had an ending nobody saw coming, a happy one.
Key Moments Today
- DRAMATayla’s fireplace finally gets the green light after five design versions and 158 phone calls: “I am so happy,” she says, as her build team breaks into an impromptu Happy Days singalong.
- ARGUMENTCourtney confronts Adam over hogging the shared tile saw all day, only to learn he never actually used it: “I didn’t cut pavers, though, Adam.” “It’s game on,” Adam fires back.
- DRAMAChristian Cole’s table for Adam and Jolene turns up on site right in front of Courtney and Sev, reopening the wound: “Why am I crying over a table? Stupid table.”
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASEFive minutes, $5,000 and a Freedom furniture blitz described by contestants as “hair being pulled, eyes gouged out” chaos, won by a very pregnant, very assisted Lisa.
The fireplace fix came down to a straight talking Hebel installer who did what weeks of arguing couldn’t: got Tayla and site supervisor Aidan actually looking at the same drawing. “We can’t work off the crap that you’re giving us,” Aidan told her mid-morning, right after Tayla’s “I’m done, tell me what” meltdown over yet another version. By 4:30pm Friday, a proper sketch, a curved Hebel wrap and one big tick later, House Five finally had a fireplace nobody could argue with. Uptown at House Three, Lisa’s own hearth saga wrapped up much the same way, care of Peter from Southern Stone stepping in with a slab at the last possible minute. “Not all heroes wear capes,” as one build hand put it. “Some have stone and wear hi-vis.”
House One spent the day doubling down on its view-first strategy, and it nearly went wrong in front of the cameras. Adam and Jolene’s 3.6 by 2.4 metre feature mirror went up in genuinely gusty conditions, with a visibly rattled Jolene admitting “I feel physically ill” as the glass swung mid-lift. It landed safely, and the pair followed it with a second delivery: their own Christian Cole table, arriving on the same day Courtney and Sev watched their scaled-down version of the same commission go to someone else entirely. “Sorry, girls,” Adam offered, not sounding especially sorry. Sev’s response was blunter: “Why am I crying over a table? Stupid table.”
Next door, House Two’s Freedom stone dining table drama got a twist of its own. Chantel discovered the exact table she’d been told was out of stock had turned up at Rick and Tayla’s instead, thanks once again to the Cursio brothers and a truck. “House Two get everything,” she said, not entirely joking. Meanwhile a shared wet tile saw turned into its own flashpoint: Courtney’s idea to hire one in for Houses Four and Five got quietly matched by Adam, who then refused to lend his out when Rick and Rosco came asking. The pettiness caught up with him Friday night when Courtney discovered he’d never actually used his own saw to cut a single paver. “It’s game on,” was Adam’s only comeback.
Away from the tools, Shelley Craft ran two cash-for-teams challenges: a five minute Freedom furniture styling blitz that Lisa somehow won despite, by her competitors’ account, an unfair amount of help from Freedom’s own VIP shoppers, and a Southern Plants tennis ball toss that Rick took out for a haul of free landscaping stock. The day closed on its softest note yet: Rosco’s son Lando arrived for a surprise visit after a long stretch apart, and foreman Dan and his wife formally introduced the world to baby Fletcher James Riley.
A fireplace resolved, a table reopened, and one shared saw that wasn’t so shared after all. Judging looms tomorrow, and from the sound of it, not every house is going to like what they hear.
