Word on The Block: Week 3
Archive
The Small House. The White Room. The Procelain Throne. Week 3 was all about the Master Bathroom.
We promise that we’ll try our best to refrain from the potty jokes, but we can’t guarantee anything. If we riddled this post with bathroom puns, it would just go down the crapper wouldn’t it?
Week 3 - Master Bathroom Week
Anyway, let’s get down to it! This time around the bathroom didn’t get any easier for anyone. Hans and Courtney were left without a bathroom because Norm and Jess had to rip the ceiling to lay their ripping for their master bath. The deal was that as long as they protected the tub, toilet and cabinetry and returned the bathroom back to the way it way, they could rip the ceiling down. Fair enough. Things get heated when Norm and Jess take days to repair the damage, and Foreman Keith gets involved as technically in order to live on a live site (live site = working construction site), you must have working facilities. Technically Hans and Courtney can’t live on site if their bathroom isn’t functional. That just makes things hard for both teams. For Courtney and Hans, they have no power or running water. They must be very pleasant to be around! For Norm and Jess, that means they have parts of their work doubled for them as they need to redo the bathroom ceiling and reinstall all the features in Courtney and Hans’ bathroom while also creating their own water closet. Bit of a crappy situation for everyone involved!
Source: The Block Official YouTube
On the Norm and Jess front, they’re taking a page out of Bianca and Carla’s book with a stone feature wall in their bathroom. What’s odd though is while they’re in the penthouse, they’ve decreased the size of the bathroom. They shrunk their bathroom in order to give more room to the master bedroom, but it doesn’t quite make much sense as with the ceiling height it’s almost ill proportioned with a double sink vanity and double shower head.
Source: The Block Official YouTube
The bad luck for the rookies in Apartment 2 did not stop at their already done up bathroom. They can’t seem to find a realtor that has the same vision for the apartment as the Perth couple does. Their bath might not fit in the spot it needs to go due a joist being in the way of the drain. Luckily they have the ability of putting in an offset drain with their tub to completely avoid the joist and keep the bath where it was to go. Hans and Courtney brought in a darker shade of the judge’s favourite terrazzo tile into this bathroom, and created a large double shower with inset shelves. Unlike a few of their team mates, Courtney and Hans increased the size their bathroom over decreasing it like Norm and Jess and Kerrie and Spence. It’s huge, and size means luxury on The Block. However, as Shaynna Blaze put it, “if you’re going to have a bathroom this big, you maximise”. More space means a chance for larger vanities, more options for storage, etc. and Courtney and Hans simply did not take advantage of this opportunity.
Source: The Block Official YouTube
Sara and Hayden are pulling all the stops in their bathroom. It’s going to be big, bold, expensive and…..gold! That’s right, gold. They’ve bought a matte black and gold tub to go in their $75k bathroom, with the tub costing about 10% of that budget. Go gold or go home right? Their vision managed to win them the Domain prize this week. We have to admit, Hayden and Sara put themselves out there with such a bold room, and it’s high time a team on The Block really pushes the envelope in terms of design and style. What better way to do that than in a gold tub?
Did it win them the room reveal? Well, no. While the tub was the feature piece, perhaps Hayden and Sara paid too much attention to the bath and forgot to give the rest of the bathroom some love. The matte black fixtures, while on trend, camouflage into the darkness of the black tiles that make the room look like Bruce Wayne’s bat cave ensuite. Judge Neil Whitaker summed up Hayden and Sara’s bathroom as a room done up in such a way that the judges were “trying to be won over by this magnificent piece that someone is saying ‘you’ve got to like this bathroom because of that bath’” and the rest of the room is just drab. Shaynna even offers one on one time with Hayden and Sara to give a styling masterclass, something which she doesn’t offer to anyone else. Does that mean Hayden and Sara should whinge and leave the show? No. Absolutely not. Keep calm and demo on, Hayden and Sara!
Source: The Block Official YouTube
Bianca and Carla seem to be on Keith’s crap list this week. First they don’t have materials for their builders to work with so they lose a day in building, but then both leave site instead of splitting the work of supervising and shopping. Always supervise your build. You never know when something will happen on site and you need to be there to make a quick decision. In the end their bathroom evolves into the sanctuary a master ensuite bathroom should be. With a stone wall feature in half the shower and fixtures that blend into the scenery, this bathroom is serene, bright and luxurious. Did Bianca and Carla win the room reveal challenge for a second time in a row?
They would have, except Kerrie and Spence swoop in and use their 1 point gnome to claim victory by half a point. Competition is getting tight!
Kerrie and Spence know a thing or two about renovations, and it’s worth taking notes from these two on how to properly do a reno. Spence takes photos of every angle of the room during the whole renovation process, just in case they need to review any corner of the room. This works out in their favour when Foreman Keith is around inspecting their waterproofing and needs to review a specific spot of the bathroom. The Barossa Valley couple also decreased the size of the bathroom to give more room to the walk in ward robes, and used the same or similar tiles within the space as the main bathroom. Spence also learned his lesson and hired a tiler this time around to do the tiling. The judges remarked throughout this room reveal on proper use of space, and Kerrie and Spence just nailed it with this bathroom.
Here’s is all the equipment Kerrie and Spence used this week to make this bathroom job easy:
- Industrial vacuum cleaner to clean the room up
- Powder actuated nail gun to fasten walls and frames
- Utility LED light so they could work well into the night
- 225mm Angle Grinder for those tricky tile cuts
- Light demolition hammer to help get the space ready for renovating
