The Block 2015: Kingi and Caro snare a second win with a triple treat

This week, Block-a-holics, we learn of another new design trend.

After “Scan-dustrial” and “gentleman’s club” comes “Rose Porteous’ boudoir”. The bidet – aka a bum washer – also makes a comeback.

Decor from the 1980s, the era style forgot, has been resurrected. If posting #homeinspo to Instagram, just be sure to rub some Vaseline over the lens, a la Rose.

Let’s get started. Bottom’s up!

Teams are pushed to the brink this week in a triple room renovation – powder room (a fancy interiors name for “the spare toot”), laundry and study.

Everyone’s budgets are depleted at the halfway point of a strenuous and expensive reno and spirits are low.

Suzi and Vonni even sleep in while their tradies get stuck in. It’s not like Suzi to miss an opportunity to mingle with strapping chippies, so we know mojos are off and chakras are out of alignment.

Sweet dreams.

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• How to design the perfect laundry

Whitney and Andrew are installing a bidet and are Googling “how to use a bidet”. The images that pop up are probably not something you’d want in your search history.

Rude Googling.

Look away kids.

Just no.

Public service announcement.

Suzi has been unflappable to this point but the enormity of this week’s challenge has her frayed worse than one of her original old 1990s Penthouse bikinis. She snaps at the site’s lift operator and returns – admirably – to apologise.

She offers him a hug and he accepts, looking confused. Don’t question, just be thankful. There is a love-starved sparkie on Tinder somewhere who’d kill for that.

Hugging it out.

Tradie confused.

The Tinderlings are bickering again, and Suzi and Vonni are still tense, but Kingi and Caro are a picture of calm.

Stressed Shay needs an embrace from Ebony, Suzi and Vonni make up, and after Andrew last week admitted it was lovely to once again feel a woman’s touch, somebody needs to teach him and Whitney the age-old adage of never going to bed angry.

Host Scott Cam’s whistle blows to put the contestants out of their misery for another week.

The judges arrive and last week’s winners, Caro and Kingi, are first under the microscope of Shaynna Blaze, Neale Whitaker and Darren Palmer.

Caro has chosen a mosaic tile depicting a tree for the powder room because “I’d like to do a wee next to a tree”. This from a contestant who Shaynna last week said should do interior design for a living.

Stunning and functional, the judges gush. Caro and Kingi have certainly marked their territory as a team to beat.

Neale likes the wee tree.

Kingi and Caro’s winning study, laundry and powder room. Photo: Channel Nine

Andrew and Whitney are next and Darren says their study effort is “unexpectedly good”. He thinks the bookshelf with leather straps and brass studs is “hot” and Neale is similarly enamoured.

“I am feeling the same vibe in here that I did in the bedroom,” he says. Ooh la la. Let’s give Neale some privacy.

But the couple’s concrete bunker laundry and loo – maybe they were going for a dungeon, Fifty Shades of Grey theme for Neale’s benefit – doesn’t get ticks.

Shaynna is anti-bidet. She says for her clients who request a bidet, it’s a very personal choice. Who are these people?

Bidets are on the nose for Shaynna.

Whitney and Andrew didn’t disgrace themselves with their study this week. Photo: Channel Nine

Suzi and Vonni are slammed by Shaynna for their “old-fashioned” study.

Neale says their antique furniture and styling is cheap and “op shop chic”. The chandelier in the toilet is horrendous, he says. He likens it to being in Rose Porteous’ bedroom – it’s hard to image a more frightening scenario or a more cutting insult. 

Shaynna stifles a laugh…

… and loses it.

Shaynna laughs and the verdict is the girls should rip it all out and start again. 

They are back to Jupiters Casino tacky, after their gentleman’s club touch of previous weeks. You can take the girls out of the Gold Coast … you know the rest.

Gold Coast mums Suzi and Vonni are off the boil this week. Photo: Channel Nine

Luke and Ebony are next, and their change of direction – ditching the art deco – wins over the judges.

A fresher, lighter touch is elegant and timeless, Neale says. There is little to fault. Surely they’ve won this week?

Neale loves this laundry sooo much it hurts.

Comeback kids Luke and Ebony have a fresh direction and a potentially winning new formula. Photo: Channel Nine

Dean and Shay in the penthouse dominated the early weeks, but have more recently fallen short of the judges’ favour.

They have installed a glossy, heated polished concrete floor and judges squat down to caress it like it’s Matthew McConaughey’s bare chest.

Their attention to detail is impeccable, with brass and concrete accents carried though, and the judges can tell from the fancy finishes that they are bleeding money hard.

Penthouse dwellers Dean and Shay are neck and neck with Kingi and Caro for wins. Photo: Channel Nine

Scott Cam picks up the chalk and scratches up the scores.

Kingi and Caro snare an unexpected win with 28.5, followed by Luke and Ebony, then Dean and Shay, with Whitney and Andrew fourth and the Jupiters duo Suzi and Vonni playing the wrong cards this week, coming dead last.

With major rooms including kitchens and living rooms left to renovate, and some teams having only $10,000 left in the kitty, it’s a gamble as to whether they’ll finish.