The Block 2024 contestants: Meet the teams on the 20th season

Victoria’s Phillip Island – known for its penguin parade and Grand Prix circuit – has been a hive of activity over the past few months during filming for The Block’s 20th season.

This year will see five teams compete to build the best holiday house at a former resort in the seaside town of Cowes, a two-hour drive from Melbourne.

With the show hitting our screens soon, we met the contestants vying for The Block 2024 crown.

Kylie and Brad Baker, Queensland

Hairdresser and business owner, 37, and electrician and plumber, 32.

Before starting their Block journey, Kylie and Brad Baker had only tackled “little bits and bobs” together at their home in Cairns, including a kid’s bedroom makeover that didn’t exactly go smoothly.

“We were wallpapering one of the kid’s rooms and I was like, ‘I’m going to divorce you; you are not listening’,” recalls Kylie. “There were bubbles in it … that didn’t go well.”

The husband-and-wife team had to quickly put plans in place for their four children, aged one to nine, when they got the unexpected call-up after applying for the past three years. “It was absolute chaos,” says Brad.

Hairdresser and business owner Kylie, who describes herself as strong-willed, came into the show ready to “order everyone around” and take charge of the design aspect of the build.

“I think the biggest challenge for me would definitely be not getting my own way,” she says.

As an electrician and a plumber, Brad has two key areas covered and anticipated that “dealing with Kylie struggling” would be the hardest part.

“Hopefully, there’s not too much that we can’t get sorted or wrap our heads around pretty quickly,” he says.

The couple, who have been together for 10 years and married for seven, imagined their time on the island as a kind of holiday but say they were quickly faced with a different reality.

“It was a lot harder than what we thought it was going to be, that’s for sure,” says Brad.

Ricky Recard and Haydn Wise, Victoria

Plumber, 34, and IT worker, 37.

Best friends Ricky Recard and Haydn Wise never imagined themselves on The Block.

The pair, who met as teenagers, applied for the first time this year, thinking it’d be a fun experience and could help set them up for the future.

“I thought it’d be a challenge for us and a pretty good excuse to get my mate away for three months,” says Ricky, who’s been plumbing for 17 years and recently renovated his own home.

IT worker Haydn admits he has “zero strengths when it comes to building”, with project management and budgeting his “forte”.

As Melbourne locals, both have visited Phillip Island over the years for motor racing events and weekend getaways. “I always thought it was a pretty cool place and probably a bit of a hidden gem,” says Ricky.

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Haydn, the “calm and collected” one of the team, has watched previous seasons of The Block with his wife, who was heavily pregnant with the couple’s first child when he left to film the show. 

He says Ricky is the “motivation guy” and that they bounce off each other’s energy: “If things go wrong, we sort of laugh our way through it and pick each other up.”

With very little experience in home decoration, Ricky anticipated styling would be the biggest challenge for the duo going in and found juggling building work with filming difficult.

“I probably underestimated the amount of sleepless nights per week that we were going to have,” he says.

Jesse Maguire and Paige Beechey, Western Australia

Carpenter, 29, and claims specialist, 27.

Jesse Maguire and Paige Beechey both grew up watching The Block with their parents, so they were thrilled to make it on as contestants on their third attempt.

“We love the show and we felt that us as a team would suit the environment really well, and we’d just enjoy doing it,” says Jesse, a carpenter.

The Perth couple met seven years ago when Jesse was celebrating a rugby grand final win with his teammates and Paige was out with a friend.

“I chased her down the street and I said, ‘Can I please have your number? I really want to take you out,” Jesse recalls. “The rest is history.”

The pair, who are set to marry in December, bought their first house together five years ago but are yet to undertake any major renovations.

Before leaving to film the show, they prepared by looking into trades, researching the local real estate market, and watching a two-hour video walkthrough of Phillip Island.

Paige says she “leaned into the design side of things” on the show but also loved getting on the tools, while Jesse took charge of the building side, coordinating trades and identifying any potential problems.

Paige describes their Block aesthetic as a “coastal grandma vibe mixed in with a bit of modern colonial”.

As long-time fans of the show, the couple say watching it from home doesn’t prepare you for the reality of being a competitor.

“You can watch the show for 20 years and think, ‘I’ve got a pretty good understanding of how I would handle it’,” Paige says. “As soon as you get there, you’re flipped on your head.”

Courtney McInnes and Grant Freeman, NSW

Events account director and furniture designer, 32, and landscape business development manager, 29.

A nudge from his mum inspired Grant Freeman and his wife Courtney McInnes to give The Block “a crack” this season.

The couple met nine years ago at a nightclub in Sydney (“Grant was a bartender and I was a drunk patron,” says Courtney) and have been married for three years. They admit viewers are likely to see them bickering on the show.

“We’ve got no problem in having a friendly argument, so everyone thought it’d be quite interesting TV to watch,” says Grant, who works in sales for a landscaping business and is an avid DIYer.

Courtney, who has a degree in design, works full-time in the events industry while running a small furniture business, The Lazy Stylist, on the side.

“I think having that background for me was really important,” she says.

The couple had rough ideas of what they wanted to do in each room before arriving on Phillip Island, coining the term“Moditerranean” to describe their modern Mediterranean aesthetic.

Despite their pre-show planning, Courtney says she was “quite naive” going in.

“I knew it was going to be hard but I didn’t think it was going to be that hard,” she says. “It was also much more rewarding than what I thought it would be.”

While Grant was expecting the late nights and the “constant go go go”, he felt the pressure of budget limitations.

“You realise when you’re on there that you can’t do everything; it’s a matter of building the best house you can within a particular budget – that really is the game,” he says.

Kristian and Mimi Belperio, South Australia

Electrician, 31, and restaurant manager, 28.

Newlyweds Kristian and Mimi Belperio decided to apply for The Block after recently completing a renovation on their Adelaide home.

“We really enjoyed that whole process – we came up with all of the ideas together, made all the choices together,” says Mimi. “So, we were like, ‘Why don’t we take this to the next level and try out for The Block?’”

The couple married in November last year after connecting at a gym Christmas party four years earlier and discovering they went to primary school together.

“It was a weird full-circle moment,” says Mimi, a restaurant manager.

Going into filming, electrician Kristian saw his familiarity with job sites and “high attention to detail” as key strengths but thought the project management side would be a challenge.

“I’m not a hugely organised person so I thought I was going to struggle with that,” he says. “I think Mimi sort of counteracts that – she’s the really organised one.”

To prepare themselves, the couple re-watched last year’s season, noting the judges’ feedback and where teams went wrong.

“I also listened to some design podcasts and I was looking up what to do if you get picked for a reality TV show,” says Kristian, adding that he is more “camera shy” than Mimi, who has a performing arts background.

Mimi describes the reality of being on The Block as “the best worst experience”. “It’s much, much worse than how it looks on TV … but super rewarding.”