The Block 2023 winners Steph and Gian to sell Bexley home featured in their audition tape

• Owners: Steph and Gian Ottavio
• Type of property: A renovated Federation-style home with a modern extension
• Address: 20 Glenfarne Street, Bexley, NSW
• Price guide: $1.7 million

When Steph and Gian Ottavio bought their first home in early 2020, they had no idea it would set them on a path to winning The Block in 2023.

At the time, the young couple were living with their respective parents – Steph in Carrs Park and Gian in Stanmore – and had been casting a wide net, from southern Sydney to the inner west, in search of the right property to renovate.

“We were looking for a property that we could add value to,” says Steph, a registered architect. “We wanted to grow with the home and we wanted something that had historical nods or some sort of ornamentation.

“Our house hunt spanned almost two years,” Gian adds. “There were times when we lost faith in the process; it was hard.”

Their exhaustive hunt eventually led them to a home that Steph says ticked most of their boxes and had “really good bones” – a 1937 Federation-style house in Bexley, 14 kilometres south-west of Sydney’s CBD and between their two families.

“It’s in this really nice pocket that connects to so many different areas,” Gian says. “I really like the community feel about it as well – it’s very family-orientated; it’s got a collection of nice cafes.”

The small two-bedroom, one-bathroom house took up roughly half of the 348-square-metre block, with a large paved courtyard at the back providing plenty of space to play with.

After exchanging contracts, the couple got to work meticulously planning the renovation, with Steph taking the lead on the design and Gian on the budgeting. They started demolition at the end of 2020 and completed the building work over seven months in 2021.

Careful to preserve the home’s character, Steph’s design included transforming the existing living and dining rooms into a main bedroom with an en suite, creating a fourth bedroom, and building a modern Scandinavian-inspired extension to the rear.

The addition, which houses the kitchen, living and dining spaces in an open-plan layout, features a high vaulted ceiling, north-facing skylights, burnished concrete flooring and large sliding glass doors that open to the courtyard.

“I like that the house is really considered from a lighting perspective,” Steph says. “The way that the sun moves around the whole day, you get beautiful rays of light but they are also controlled … the skylights have blinds; all of the major glazing areas have blockouts.”

To blur the lines between old and new, excess tiles from the courtyard were kept and re-laid down the side of the extension and the home’s original cypress pine floorboards were sanded and whitewashed.

The couple moved into the finished home in January 2022, a few months before their April wedding, and have since enjoyed hosting gatherings, relaxing with their cavoodle Lumiere (Lumi for short) and cooking in their spacious kitchen, which features a striking Rosa Zarci marble bench.

“Everyone wants us to host things because of the feel of our home and we love that,” Gian says. “Being Greek and Italian, it’s very family-centric and friend-centric.”

Their experience working together on the renovation also inspired them to apply for The Block. While the idea of being selected as contestants felt “far fetched” at the time, they put together an audition tape using footage captured during the building process.

“We never considered going on The Block before we did this renovation together,” Steph says. “We started watching it and we thought, ‘We could do this,’ purely because of what we had just achieved here.”

The pair not only made it onto the show, but went on to win its 19th season and take home a life-changing $1.75 million in prize money, the highest amount ever awarded.

A few months on from their win, they are preparing to launch their own homewares brand, Japandi Estate – a collection of pieces inspired by the Japandi (Japanese and Scandinavian) aesthetic they became known for during their time on the show.

SOLD - $1,825,000

20 Glenfarne Street, Bexley NSW 2207

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In what Gian describes as a “full circle” moment, they’ve just placed their Bexley home on the market and are now applying lessons they learnt on The Block to the sale process.

“We really love this home, we’re very attached to it,” Steph says. “It holds a really special place in our hearts but we are excited for the next chapter – we want to keep designing and building and learning.”

• Want to know what’s happening with The Block in 2024? Find out everything you need to know here.