Nine weeks in, three to go, and the last interior reveal of the season was a double: a kids’ bedroom and a redo room for every team, with $20,000 in room prizes on offer and a further $30,000 from Arnott’s for anyone brave enough to chase three perfect tens. By the time the judges finished, one team had done exactly that, one team had walked away with the lowest score of the night and a $10,000 budgeting award as a consolation, and a new insult had entered the show’s vocabulary.
It was also a week where the pressure was openly existential for some. Rick and Tayla’s opening message was blunt (“We need money”), House One were defending a $50,000 Domain win from Thursday, and House Four were still stinging from finishing dead last at the same buyers jury. All of that got settled in about twenty minutes of judging.
| Rank | Team | Score (out of 30) | Judges’ Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 1st | House Four, Courtney and Sev | 30 | “It is one of the best living spaces in block history.” (Darren Palmer) |
| 🥈 2nd | House Three, Lisa and Rosco | 29 | “This is a room that sells the dream.” (Shaynna Blaze) |
| 🥉 =3rd | House One, Adam and Jolene | 21.5 | “If there was a word for this room, it’s meh.” (Darren Palmer) |
| 🥉 =3rd | House Five, Rick and Tayla | 21.5 | “From a marketing perspective, I think it’s in that space of forgettable.” (Marty Fox) |
| 5th | House Two, Chantel and Wyatt | 17.5 | “This is a big, big, big miss.” (Darren Palmer) |
Key Moments This Episode
- DRAMACourtney and Sev take a perfect 30 and $50,000 in one night, with Scott Cam confirming “that is number five” for their room wins this season.
- ARGUMENTRick and Tayla’s Saturday paint standoff: “I don’t need to be roasted every week on how far behind I am.”
- DISASTERChantel and Wyatt finish last on 17.5 after a redo room that still hasn’t flipped the TV: “This is a big, big, big miss.”
- DRAMAThe judges coin a new term for House Two: “askholes,” because “they ask, and then you give it to them, and then it goes down the hole.”
- ARGUMENTMirror wall and fireplace: House Four’s redo room lands the same bronze mirror as House One’s, and the two houses trade “compliment” and “copycat.”
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASELisa drives to Cranbourne to meet a seamstress she found on Marketplace for a custom reading-nook cushion, finished “in record time.”
- DISASTERShaynna on House Five’s kids’ room: a lamp sitting under a pendant light is “really weird.”
- DRAMALisa and Rosco lose a point to unpainted skirting and call out “different rules for different people.”
House Four: Courtney and Sev (30 points, 1st)
Four days after finishing last on 13 percent at the Domain Buyers Jury, Courtney and Sev delivered a perfect score. Their kids’ room was drenched in colour and built around a custom wavy bedhead made from acoustic panelling (a sponsor product, so it didn’t touch their budget). Shaynna called it the first room on the block with colour that was “perfectly executed,” Marty praised the “one percenters” that set them apart, and Darren summed it up as “effort plus.”
“The execution is ridiculous. For a colour drenched room, it’s extremely well painted.”
Shaynna Blaze
The redo room did the rest. A new fireplace with a marble insert, the biggest coffee table of the season and a bronze mirror wall in exactly the same spot as House One’s (Courtney, earlier in the week: “I’d like to say that we’re not copying House One, but she’s not the first person to do a mirror wall”). Darren wondered aloud how House One would feel about it, then called the plan “far and beyond better” and the whole space “one of the best living spaces in block history.”
“I am so impressed. This is a far and beyond better plan.”
Darren Palmer
Three tens meant $30,000 from Arnott’s, on top of $10,000 from Chery for the room and $10,000 from Domain for the redo, which added up to $50,000 and a Chery getaway to a Peninsula winery. Their first phone call was to landscaper Troy: “We want 50 grand.” After the Thursday sting, they very much needed it.
House Three: Lisa and Rosco (29 points, 2nd)
A kids’ room with an Australiana theme, kangaroos, birds and a reading nook, built with their son Lando in mind and a second child on the way. Lisa had driven to Cranbourne to meet a Marketplace seamstress for a custom bench cushion, Rosco built a flat-packed triple bunk with roller drawers (“He was so grumpy”), and the judges noticed. “Finally, we’ve got something to get excited about,” said Marty, while Shaynna said you could “feel the love in the room.”
“This is a room that sells the dream.”
Shaynna Blaze
The redo of their week six guest bedroom landed just as well: the peachy wallpaper was gone, the bed was bigger, and the wall treatment now matched the ensuite. “They did what we suggested for the reasons that we suggested it, and it works,” said one judge, with another calling it “one of the nicest bedrooms on the block.”
The one blemish was the skirting. Darren said it would have been “a 10 out of 10” had it been painted, which is how a 30 became a 29. Lisa and Rosco were not thrilled: “There’s different rules for different people. What’s the point?”
House One: Adam and Jolene (21.5 points, =3rd)
The week started with a Domain win and ended with the judges asking where the kids’ room was. Adam and Jolene had pivoted from a kids’ room to a gym to an “adult child” space, and Marty did not pull his punches: “I thought we were meant to be seeing kids’ rooms this week. That means that there’s no kids’ room in this entire house.” Shaynna queried the wardrobe (“Kids don’t need clothes, obviously”) and the hand cream on the bedside, and Darren offered the word for the room.
“If there was a word for this room, it’s meh.”
Darren Palmer
The redo of their week one guest bedroom was, as one judge put it, “not much” different: the chair the judges hated stayed, side tables, pendants, art, cushions and a rug were added, and the niche for a curtain was still missing. Shaynna pegged it as “the worst flower arrangement this season,” and the judges wondered if the Domain win had made them drop the ball: “Today is a 20K day. What is this?” Adam and Jolene took it on the chin: “The judges were looking for a kids’ room tonight. They were never gonna get it from us. And we own that.”
House Five: Rick and Tayla (21.5 points, =3rd)
Rick and Tayla’s Saturday was a masterclass in father-daughter painting tension. “Dad. Everyone else is finished, and you’re still painting that,” Tayla said, and by the time Rick was asked if he was over it, the answer was blunt: “Yeah, I am, actually. Over her.” They made up, as they do, and delivered a tween room with a large pampas mural that Darren genuinely loved (“probably a successful tween room”) even while Marty found it “forgettable.”
“Sorry, that’s weird. Why is there a lamp and a pendant?”
Shaynna Blaze
The redo room was the bigger problem. Better couches and less dance floor earned some goodwill, but the judges compared it to House Four’s fireplace (“They were meant to do it here”) and one judge was unkind about the easel art, comparing it to “a $2 shop.” Tayla’s explanation was familiar: “We just, again, ran out of time.”
House Two: Chantel and Wyatt (17.5 points, 5th)
A neutral kids’ room built on their agent’s advice, and a living room where the TV remained on the wrong wall. Marty asked, “What is their agent telling them? They should be discussing strategy,” Shaynna said, “I feel like they don’t care,” and their own defence landed with a thud: “We tried to add colour. We can’t win. We’re too beige.”
“They’re called askholes. They get advice, and then it goes down the hole.”
The judges, on House Two’s redo room
One judge acknowledged the improvements (more couch, colour in the cushions, better art), but said the one thing that isn’t fixed is “the one impediment to buying this house over the rest of them.” Shaynna said she was “so beyond frustrated,” noting the judges had “probably got 100 years of expertise, and they ignore it.” The show had also revisited the Candyman theory in its recap, asking whether a secret buyer explained why the pair weren’t taking judges’ feedback on board. The only good news came earlier: the $10,000 CommBank Better Budgeting Award, for coming within $319 of their budget estimate.
Next up: the great outdoors
Three weeks to go, and the first outdoor spaces start next week: decks, pools, a celebrity guest who turns PE teacher in very short red shorts and the first family reunions in ten weeks. The prize pool just tipped past $400,000, including a $50,000 kitchen, $10,000 of Levantine Hill wine and $10,000 of flooring. The first look at the terraces and pools promises “mixed verdicts,” with one judge saying “this absolutely exceeds expectation” and another calling it “the worst one today.” Pack a hat; we’ll see you outside.
