Bathroom week on The Block 2015: first room reveals put teams in hot water

One look at that big ugly Block tower would be enough to give even an experienced renovator the willies.

But trust Suzi, the Blocktagon’s worksite bombshell, to keep up the mood.

“And I looked up at his big crane and I said, ‘wow that’s a big crane’. He said ‘I’ve got a lot bigger than this one’,” Suzi says.

The twinkle in Suzi’s eye proves this former Penthouse Pet of the Year and rookie renovator is smartly playing along with the game.

It’s the first official room reveal on The Block and Suzi isn’t the only thing that’s raising the mercury.

Wet rooms are a special kind of nightmare and starting off the season with a master en suite challenge has cranked up the temperature on the teams.

Dean and Shay’s Channel Nine-issued credit card is also getting a red hot workout.

The couple has spent $40,000 on their penthouse bathroom – a third of their total budget, with several rooms left to go – by splashing out on herringbone marble tiles and custom-made brass taps.

It’s the most expensive bathroom ever on the show. For that, a buyer would expect a dunny made from gold and imported hand-loomed organic cotton loo paper.

Tinderlings Andrew and Whitney are knocking out a wall and while others are hanging pendants (why are there always pendant lights in Block bathrooms but never in real life real estate?) and admiring precision grouting, they are yet to get really stuck in.

And there are 24 hours to go. 

Watching The Block is a study in two things – how to ensure your relationship survives a reno, and technical tradie speak.

How’s this for a whole other language: Luke and Ebony are delivering “hand mitred feature tiles on a nib”. Whadda?

On The Block is also where manly men connect with their inner decor connoisseur, often with surprising results.

Kingi is not sure Caro’s choice of towels is plush enough. His furrowed brow proves he’s deadset about it. 

Who’s fancy, now? He’ll never be able to hit the local pub in Townsville with his head held high again.

Suzi and Vonni have a toilet plumbing issue, but I have never seen so many tradies in one room on The Block, so they’ll be fine. All red-blooded dudes are on deck.

Shay proves she has no financial willpower and splashes a heart-attack inducing $275 on a plywood storage box. It’s Australia’s most expensive toothpaste container.

The producers give us a peek of Kingi and Caro’s never-seen-before-on-the-show graffiti bath, but the excitement is short lived.

An accident with a smashed shower screen glass has them shaken like a can of spray paint.

As the screen explodes into a million pieces, depositing a couple of kilos of frosted shards on the floor, you imagine that as devastating as this is for the couple, hard up against deadline, the producers have just high-fived each other for getting another snippet for the promo reel.

Twenty minutes to go and Caro and Kingi’s tradies are hauling a new screen up the outside scaffolding.

Tools down, judging time and, unsurprisingly, Caro and Kingi’s cutting-edge graffiti bath gets ticks all around.

Whitney and Andrew have redeemed themselves, from “zero to hero”, says judge Neale Whitaker.

But he doesn’t like their pendant. It’s not dramatic enough. The pendant has no personality. And that’s the third thing you learn from The Block – how to view inanimate objects through a humanising prism of traits, complexity and mystique.

In keeping with that, Suzi and Vonni’s nightclub bathroom is “sexy”.

Judge Darren Palmer also mades a slightly rude, rather fabulous comment about neighbours being able to see “your milkbar” while showering, thanks to a window overlooking the local corner shop. 

But Luke and Ebony aren’t getting the judges similarly hot under the collar.

They have problems with the siblings’ mitred nibs – or something – and their small basins and big taps. There is also mismatched chrome and black accents, and in this decor court, that’s 35 to life.

But the penthouse gets the judges’ blood pumping again.

Dean and Shay’s $275 box doesn’t rate a mention, but a roll of $16 matte black toilet paper (which Shay says isn’t for use – she can’t spare a square, to nick a Seinfeld line) is fawned over plenty.

Darren runs his hands over a curvaceous tap and it feels like we are intruding on a very private moment.

“Mind-blowing”. “Hot”. The judges are talking about a bathroom in a way others would discuss a Victoria’s Secret model. Each to their own – whatever floats your bath boat.

Scores are in and Dean and Shay have clawed back a little of their blown-out budget with a $10,000 win.

They beat Caro and Kingi and their graffiti bath, with comeback kids Whitney and Andrew in third place, and fourth going to Goldie glamazons Suzi and Voni.

Luke and Ebony’s dodgy nibs render them last.

Guest bedrooms are up next.

Until next week…