Five weeks in, and living, dining and alfresco week finally delivered the rooms every house has been promising since Easter Monday: the ones meant to sell the house. It also delivered a $80,000 speedboat, a newborn’s name, and a genuine medical emergency that nearly took a team’s build supervisor out of the competition entirely.
| Rank | Team | Score | Judges’ Take |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st (WINNER) | Adam & Jolene | 27 | “Nothing in here is accidental.” (Darren Palmer) |
| 2nd | Lisa & Rosco | 26 | “I love this room.” (Marty Fox) |
| 3rd | Courtney & Sev | 22.5 | “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.” (Darren Palmer) |
| 4th | Rick & Tayla | 22 | “It’s not hitting the mark.” (Shaynna Blaze) |
| 5th | Chantel & Wyatt | 19.5 | “This is the definition of vanilla.” (Marty Fox) |
Scores shown are Shaynna Blaze’s individual tally out of a possible 30; the winning margin of one point held up across the full three-judge total.
Key Moments This Episode
- DRAMARick is hospitalised with a knee infection and put under doctor’s orders to stay off site, forcing Tayla to finish the room without him, with outside help from British Paint that briefly reopens The Block’s number one rule about who’s allowed to hold a roller.
- ARGUMENTMarty and Darren go head to head over Adam and Jolene’s giant mirror, Marty insisting it just doubles the wall, Darren calling that “bull,” insisting it doubles the ocean, the trees and the city view.
- DISASTERChantel and Wyatt’s living room gets flattened by all three judges in the same walkthrough: “dead,” “the definition of vanilla,” and backwards on top of it, despite the team winning the Better Budgeting Award for the second week running.
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASEAn $80,000 Crusher speedboat gets tipped into the season prize pool, pushing the total past a quarter of a million dollars, in week five.
- DRAMAForeman Dan and his wife reveal their newborn son’s name to the whole site: baby Fletcher James Reilly.
- DRAMAAdam and Jolene finally break their drought, taking out their first room win of the season by a single point.
Adam & Jolene: A View, A Mirror, and a Win At Last
Five weeks of near misses ended for Adam and Jolene with a room the judges could barely fault. The star of the show was their Christian Cole dining table, ten seats of salvaged 2019 bushfire timber that had Marty Fox audibly gasping: “How big is this? That’s expansive.” His verdict landed just as big: “Scale is luxury.”
The giant mirror they’d sweated over installing in high wind became the week’s most argued-about feature. Marty wasn’t sold, insisting it just reflected the wall back at itself twice over, while Darren flatly called that “bull,” pointing out he could see trees, ocean and city skyline doubled in the glass. Shaynna, for her part, didn’t care who was right: “The sense of space here is phenomenal.” She called it their best room yet, adding she wouldn’t have picked it as an Adam and Jolene room “because they have grown so much.”
Marty’s only real complaint was the terrace, which he felt lacked a barbecue to match the rest of the room’s ambition: “This is a little bit more undercooked.” It wasn’t enough to stop the win. By a single point, Adam and Jolene took out week five, their first room win of the season, and by the sound of the site afterwards, a long time coming.
Lisa & Rosco: Nearly Perfect, One Rug Away
Lisa and Rosco’s room drew some of the warmest language of the day. “I love this room,” Marty said plainly, predicting buyers would feel the same. Shaynna singled out the fireplace and the wall colour: “It just brings that softness and that energy that this space deserves.”
Darren’s issue was almost embarrassingly simple to fix: the rug was facing the wrong way, and the sofa’s curve was pointed away from the room’s best sightlines. “The easy rescue, and it really is very easy, is the rug gets turned 90 degrees.” He was clear that didn’t undercut the bones of the design: “The thought process of the elements that were going to work in here is perfection.”
Outside, the fireplace-adjacent terrace and the barbecue placement won over the panel almost entirely, capping off what was, orientation issue aside, one of the most consistently praised rooms of the week.
Courtney & Sev: The Best Terrace, A Living Room Cut in Half
Working with the tightest budget on the block, Courtney and Sev split the judges clean in two. Marty had no notes on their styling: “I can’t fault Courtney and Sev’s decision making in terms of their style,” praising the outdoor space as the most successful of the day. Their outdoor dining table also picked up a specific callout as the best of the day.
Inside was a different story. Darren couldn’t get past how the open-plan living space had been visually split in half around a modest television: “Have you seen someone cut their living room in half? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.” He argued the fix was obvious: a bigger screen would let the rest of the room breathe. Marty, notably, admitted his own controversial take live on camera: “TVs are ugly,” to the amusement of the room.
It added up to a room where quiet-luxury styling choices under real financial pressure earned genuine respect, undercut by a layout call the judges couldn’t get past, landing them third by half a point.
Rick & Tayla: Perfection on Paper, Rushed on the Day
Nobody doubted Rick and Tayla’s taste this week, just their timing. “I think having a beautiful fireplace is a feature,” Shaynna said, running through the cabinetry, floating shelves and pendant lighting she loved. “This green is stunning. That artwork is divine.” And then, in the same breath: “It’s not hitting the mark.”
Darren’s read was blunter, giving the room a 7 and pointing squarely at the week Rick spent hospitalised with a knee infection: “The way that they’ve clearly rushed, something went awry.” The team’s version-five fireplace, finally signed off days earlier, copped an unplanned nickname from the judges’ entourage on the walk through: pizza oven.
With a six-seat table oddly paired with the wrong chairs and a large stretch of unused floor nearby (“that’s for breakdancing,” as one onlooker put it), the room’s individual pieces impressed far more than the way they’d been pulled together under pressure.
Chantel & Wyatt: Two Weeks of Budgeting Gold, One Room of Nothing
Chantel and Wyatt walked away with their second consecutive CommBank Better Budgeting Award, landing within $885 of their estimate for a tidy $10,000. It was the only unqualified good news of their day.
Shaynna didn’t hold back on the room itself: “This is dead. This is the definition of vanilla. There’s nothing here.” She also singled out a vase of carnations as an affront to the room’s ambitions: “They’re buttonhole flowers.” Darren agreed the whole thing had been built backwards, TV on the wrong wall, seating facing away from the ocean view entirely, calling it “the most boring execution I’ve ever seen of a multi-million dollar house.”
Marty’s issue was the terrace, an impressive table let down by no barbecue and nowhere to actually use the view: “What are you selling? You’re selling the view, the liveability, the luxuriousness. All of this in one.” Two weeks running the best budgeters on the block, and two weeks running a room the judges could not get behind.
Adam and Jolene finally have their win, Rick is under doctor’s orders and out of action until Monday, and there’s a new baby, a new boat and a quarter of a million dollars sitting in the prize pool with the season not yet at its halfway mark. Next week: bedrooms, bathrooms, and a temporary new site boss standing in for a very reluctant patient. Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and we’ll see you back here for the next disaster.
