Word on The Block: Week 9

It’s the last week of renovations before the five teams on The Block can return to the families…or is it? And it wouldn’t be The Block without a few little surprises now would it?

Week 9 - Terrace Week

 

Source: The Block Official YouTube

 

Let’s start with the couple that seemed to have struggled the most throughout this season, and not entirely from their own doing. Hans and Courtney have next to no cash at this point of the competition. Well…everyone has next to no cash. It’s kind of understandable that the Perth team are at this stage considering they have no trade experience and therefore have had to use more trades to finish the job than other teams. So, they have to stretch their funds as far as they can. Hans attempts to do a few things himself while Courtney attempts to pay off some debts by working at The Block shop.

Courtney also left full responsibility for the terrace room to Hans. Why do you ask? Mate, I have absolutely no idea. It’s been very clear throughout the whole season that Hans manages the project, Courtney styles. So why on earth has Courtney left it all to Hans for the last room, the last chance they have at winning a room reveal and $10k?

I guess this is the time where we need to talk about the elephant in the room. The elephant that comes in the form of a red diesel heater. The one that caused Apartment 2 to shut down. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of safety on a construction site. The monumental error one of Courtney and Hans’ builders made by not properly connecting the line from a gas bottle to a heater could have been fatal. They are incredibly lucky that the heater was not on. I would not wish any ill will on anyone, but I hope this builder was removed from site. If you cannot follow simple instructions of using any gas fuelled equipment in a well ventilated area, then you shouldn’t be allowed to use it at all.

In the end Courtney wasn’t too happy with Hans’ execution of the terrace, nor we the judges. White walls with a few plants and outdoor furniture in an indoor space don’t make a winning terrace. As Shaynna Blaze put it, it was boring as bat…

Source: The Block Official YouTube

 

Moving on to Hayden and Sara. Hayden and Sara have an ambitious room with a unique concrete formwork that doubles as a barbeque and a mini jungle of plants. There was a bit of back and forth with the engineer in terms of whether the structure was safe and wouldn’t topple over, but just by adding an anchor within the wall the formwork was attached to made it sturdy enough t go ahead. All that’s missing is a bit of whinging and drama. Oh wait, this is Hayden and Sara that I’m talking about. Of course that happened!

The judges actually quite liked their terrace, so much so Neil Whitaker thought the terrace was “the most sophisticated and resolved” Hayden and Sara have ever been. The NSW couple have finally found that happy balance between over the top and not enough.

 

Source: The Block Official YouTube

 

Kerrie and Spence breezed through Terrace week. As experienced renovators, their budget was relatively healthy enough that they wouldn’t have to resort to selling off items to get across the line. While the judges loved the space, they could see that budget did in the end show in the styling of the spacing. While the dining area tied in nicely with the dining space indoors, the lounge area seemed bare and lacking in the luxury the dining portion of the room had.

Source: The Block Official YouTube

 

Bianca and Carla had landscaping great (and very tall…yes he’s very tall!) Dave Franklin to design their terrace. Using the original chimney stack of the Gatwick, Dave’s idea is to create a fireplace on end of the terrace next to a bar overlooking St Kilda, with a large table and barbeque area at the other end of the L-shaped terrace. Let the challenges begin! Foreman Keith shows how the firebox Dave has chosen will not fit in the hole created within the stack, delaying much of Dave’s work until he solves the problem with the engineers. Once that’s fixed, Dave gets further delays when the pergola install takes over nearly the entire work area, and without working with the rest of the crew on site delays any further work until the structure is installed. Nice team work guys.

The judges seem to adore nearly every single terrace this week, and Bianca and Clara’s was no exception. The only flaws they seem to have is the placement of the lounge out from under the cover of the pergola, which cost them half a point from victory.

And so that leaves my faves, and the ones to beat this year – Norm and Jess. The Queenslanders have been down in the dumps this week after learning their budgets or at absolutely zero and much earlier than anticipated. It’s so bad that even after selling off bits and pieces they are not going to use in the apartment, they have to lay off trades bit by bit in order to make ends meet. Then they have on redo the wooden deck because of spacing between each board. But things brighten up for them when they win the Domain cover challenge. Domain Magazine has predicted the last three winners of The Block, and if the pattern keeps on going that means that Norm and Jess will be crowned as this year’s winners.

Well winner winner, chicken dinner. Norm and Jess’ lucky streak kept going and they finally win a Room Reveal.  They wowed the judges with the water feature, the barbeque area, under cover seating area and breakfast nook. It was an amazing space with plenty of room for a party. Congrats Norm and Jess, you did it!

Here’s all the equipment they used to help make Terrace Week easy:

• Utility LED light so they could work well into the night
• Laser Level to make things nice and straight
• Scaffold to reach the 4M ceilings
• 12500 BTU space heater to help get things dry
• Airless sprayer to paint the room (watch our episode of EasyTV on how to use this machine here.)
• Sabre Saw to cut bits and pieces in confined spaces
• Cordless hammer drill with dust extraction unit to fasten the items in place with minimal dust
• Cordless percussion drill to drill through masonry and brick
• Tile Saw to make professional cuts. Check out our video on how to use a tile saw.
• Furniture trailer to help Jess deliver the goods she sold

As always, keep your tools sharp and your hard hats on Blockheads!