Guest bedroom week wrapped on Sunday with the season’s first real twist: this wasn’t just a round of scores, it was the House Decider Challenge, meaning whichever team’s bedroom impressed the judges most got first pick of which house they’d renovate for the rest of the competition. Everyone else took whatever was left.
It turned into one of those weeks where the gap between the top and the bottom of the leaderboard was enormous. One house set what the judges called “the benchmark” for the whole season within its first hour of judging, while another team was told, to their faces, that the judges didn’t think they were worthy of being on The Block at all. In between: a builder accused of breaking the show’s oldest rule, a mattress balanced on books because nobody remembered the bed slats, and a fair bit of confusion about whether $20,000 actually left anyone’s bank account.
| Rank | Team | Result | Judges’ Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 1st | Sev and Courtney | Winner, by a big margin | “This is the brief that has been hit out of the ballpark.” |
| 🥈 2nd | Adam and Jolene | Safe and luxury | “They’ve played a safe but very luxury play.” |
| 🥉 3rd | Lisa and Rosco | Divisive, best budgeter | “There’s just a lot of things happening that, for me, do not work at all.” |
| 4th | Chantel and Wyatt | Missed the brief | “This would be Mount Eliza 35 years ago.” |
| 5th | Rick and Tayla | Bottom of the pack | “I don’t think these guys are worthy of The Block in what I’m seeing here.” |
Nine didn’t read scores out on air this week, the House Decider Challenge winner was called directly off the judges’ combined verdicts rather than a running tally, so treat this ranking as a read of what was actually said in the room, not a maths exercise.
Key Moments This Episode
- DISASTERRick and Tayla’s bed had no slats at all, the mattress was sitting straight on books and boxes, and Marty found out the hard way: “I’ve just fallen through this… there’s not even a fitted sheet here, guys.”
- DRAMAThe build week’s biggest scandal: allegations that Chantel and Wyatt’s builder had been caught painting, breaking a rule Scott Cam said was “established over a thousand episodes ago, in 2003,” that only contestants can paint their own rooms.
- ARGUMENTScott Cam told Chantel and Wyatt their cash spend for the week was $20,700. They disputed it in real time: “How do you spend 20 grand?” “We did not.”
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASEAdam and Jolene forgot two genuinely basic things going into reveal day: bed slats and linen.
- DRAMAGuest judge Alice Stolz gave Sev and Courtney’s routed ceiling artwork “ten out of ten just for the effort,” calling it the bravest thing in the street all week.
- DISASTERRick and Tayla’s chippy failed to collect their artwork along with everything else, so they walked into judging with a genuinely bare room.
- RIDICULOUS PURCHASESev and Courtney went all in on micro cement across walls, floor and ceiling, a spend heavy enough that their own $10,000 CommBank winnings will “come in very handy.”
- ARGUMENTMarty Fox, to Rick and Tayla’s faces: “I don’t think these guys are worthy of The Block in what I’m seeing here.” A very quiet car ride home followed.
Sev and Courtney: the house that set the benchmark
House Three walked away with week one by, in Scott Cam’s own words, “a big margin.” The room leaned hard into texture: pleated ruched velvet on the bed head, a marble ledge, a routed timber ceiling standing in for artwork so the room had nothing hanging on the walls to distract from it. It was, as Darren Palmer put it, “so different than anything we’ve seen in the other two houses,” and the judges spent most of the walkthrough trying to find something to criticise and mostly failing.
“I feel like I’m in a cocoon. I want to see more of the house. I want all of this and more.”
Guest judge Alice Stolz
The spend was heavy, all that micro cement doesn’t come cheap, but a $10,000 cheque from Chery and first pick of house should soften the blow. “Right now, House Three has set the benchmark,” was Marty Fox’s read on the whole thing, and nobody in the room seemed inclined to argue.
Adam and Jolene: quiet luxury, or maybe just quiet
House One went the calm, considered route: a restrained, Axel Vervoordt-inspired palette, matching bronze hardware, layered texture without a single loud gesture in the room. The judges liked it, genuinely, but the word “vanilla” came up more than once, along with “homogenised” and Marty’s backhanded “open-for-inspection-ready.”
“I think they’ve played a safe but very luxury play.”
Marty Fox
Safe was still good enough for second place in week one, which says as much about the rest of the street as it does about House One. Expect this to be the room the judges keep quietly measuring everyone else against.
Lisa and Rosco: crooked genius, or just crooked
House Four split the panel harder than anything else in the street. The wall niche was deliberately off-angle, and Marty could not get past it: “It’s so bizarre that it’s not straight… it doesn’t work at all.” Shaynna Blaze agreed the cutting-in on the paintwork was rough, and guest judge Alice Stolz called the overall look “a little hodge-podge.”
“There’s just a lot of things happening that, for me, do not work at all.”
Shaynna Blaze
But there was real love for one piece: a wardrobe in Sonora oak from Freedom, which Marty called “probably the best thing in the room.” And Alice, weighing House One and Two’s safer choices against this room’s swings, made a point of saying “at least they’ve tried,” then admitted this house and House One were personally the two she’d be picking. Lisa and Rosco also walked off with the week’s other cheque: $10,000 from CommBank for coming within six dollars of Scott Cam’s guess at their cash spend, the best budgeting result of the week.
Chantel and Wyatt: old luxury on a new build
House Two chased a Hamptons look on a facade the judges kept describing as thoroughly modern, and the mismatch was the whole story of the walkthrough. “This would be Mount Eliza 35 years ago,” was Shaynna Blaze’s verdict, and Marty scored the paintwork six out of ten over visible brush strokes and poor cutting-in, despite being impressed enough by the plush carpet to take his shoes off mid-inspection.
“A period detail on a very architectural home, it really doesn’t match the facade whatsoever.”
Marty Fox
It capped off a rough week for the team, who’d already spent build week fending off allegations that their builder had been caught painting, a breach of the show’s oldest rule that only contestants can paint their own rooms. Then Scott Cam told them their cash spend for the week came to $20,700, a figure they disputed on the spot, insisting the real total was closer to $12,000 between their carpenter and plasterer. Nobody on camera worked out where the other eight grand went.
Rick and Tayla: no slats, no artwork, no mercy
House Five had the hardest afternoon of the season so far. The judges called the room “void of texture, which means it’s a void of emotion,” then, for good measure, “void of life.” There was no fitted sheet, no shears, no artwork (their chippy never came back to collect it), and Marty discovered mid-walkthrough that the mattress had no slats underneath it at all, just books and boxes holding it up.
“I think there’s three great things about this room: the carpet, the wardrobes, and the door to leave.”
Marty Fox
Even the one bright spot, a timber wardrobe the judges initially loved, turned sour once someone opened it and found it filthy inside. Guest judge Alice Stolz didn’t soften the final read: “I don’t think these guys are worthy of The Block in what I’m seeing here.” Rick and Tayla insisted afterwards they didn’t feel they had much to change. The judges, politely, disagreed.
Wrap-up
Five houses, one clear benchmark, and one team who copped the most brutal week-one review the judges have handed out all season. Sev and Courtney head into week two with first pick of house and $10,000 in the bank, Lisa and Rosco have a second cheque to soften a divisive scorecard, and everyone else has a fair bit of thinking to do before next Sunday. Grab a coffee, get comfortable, and we’ll see you back here once the chaos of week two kicks off.
