It’s time for a new season of the Block but this time there’s a twist.
Scott welcomes us back to Melbourne for a new season of The Block. This year will be tough; the contestants will have to renovate a hotel where each floor has 8 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms. All in all, they will be doing 88 rooms in 11 weeks.
The teams arrive thinking that eliminations are in order. They will stay in the only good rooms on their floors.
We meet some of the teams. They are Alisa and Lysandra from Adelaide, South Australia, Bec and George from Melbourne and Kim and Matt from Perth, Western Australia. They are in lockdown.
The teams have everything in their room from an unplugged phone to a television with dodgy reception. All teams are excited and nervous.
The first day sees the contestants receiving a message from Scotty to meet him on the roof. When all teams arrive, Scotty tells them that there will be no elimination round and they are the official teams for The Block 2013. After then telling them that the hotel IS The Block, he introduces the first challenge, to renovate the room and bathroom near their rooms to 5-star standard in 48 hours. For the winner; $10,000 and the right to choose what floor is theirs for the season.
George and Bec have the penthouse for now. They notice the cracks. They all have decent sized rooms with cracks and dirty bathrooms. We discover that Matt has renovation experience. Everyone’s trying to organise a tradies to help with the ceiling but no one can help in such a short time frame.
George and Bec are the first out the door and they find a vanity that they like after a few minutes. The vanity is a favourite among teams and eventually goes to Madi because George and Bec were still deciding. Meanwhile, Matt and Kim are lost on their way to the store.
3 hours in and only Jarrad stays behind to pull everything apart. All the other teams then follow their lead and split up. Alisa is on the phone while Lysandra is on the tools. Matt and Kim finally arrive to pick their tiles but they have no idea what to pick.
All teams pick tiles but Bec has too many tiles but not enough space while George is being pushed. He wasn’t aware that pipes were behind the wardrobe. This stresses him.
George, Lysandra and Jarrad are working hard. Matt and Kim have all the tradies arrive at once and they haven’t done a thing. Madi arrives back just as the tiler is about to begin and they are relaxed. Trixie arrives at Carpet Court and her options are limited due to being late.
Alisa skips off to Mitre 10 to get things but things aren’t looking good with tradies pulling out. Alisa has her Suzuki packed to the rafters so much that the car doesn’t look like it gonna get back. It’s 5 pm so teams have 1 hour before restrictions kick in. Floor 1 has all tradies working while George and Bec get family members to help out.
Jarrad has all the tiles in while Team SA has no tradies but they are working on the phone to get help and, alas, they get help from strangers. Floor 3 is painting while someone’s still using power tools. Everyone is working while some teams are reaching breaking point.
