The Block NZ 2017 recap: Mismatching and mish-mashing

This week on The Block NZ, the teams were clearly all exhausted. Moving at a three-quarter pace, bleary eyed, unable to speak, they all looked like me on a standard Sunday morning. They are all SHATTERED, except for Ling and Zing who are just like that anyway.

Despite that, the teams all managed to turn out a confusing mish-mash of rooms, because it seems this season they've just thrown structure to the wind and have all the teams working on different rooms at the same time. Which makes sense to compare them and judge them against each other, I guess.

Julia and Ali

Julia and Ali's bedroom.
Julia and Ali's bedroom. Photo credit: Mediaworks NZ

The twins tackled a six-year-old boy's bedroom. Again. Thank god, because the future middle-class owners of twin six-year-old boys who sleep in separate rooms need to be catered for.

Julia and Ali always sound so excited when they talk through their ideas! Their enthusiasm just gets everyone around them pumped up! "We're going for a theme and we have some artwork that's appropriate to that theme," was a particular highlight. 

"Ali, our carpet's getting laid - do you want to go have a look??!"

"Well we can't go look while they're doing it, we'll just get in the way," was another.

In the hallway, their textured wallpaper was great, but the tiny storage cupboard was as stingy as they are with their emotions. They "nailed the bedroom" according to the judges. So thank god, the parents can pick their favourite future six-year-old and give them the good one. Shitty finishing let them down, but it was probably somebody else's fault.

Andy and Nate

Andy and Nate's study.
Andy and Nate's study. Photo credit: Mediaworks NZ.

The babes dressed as babies were going for a "sunny, soothing study this week".

They used the opportunity to prove their Kiwi-ladness by being cute with their kids, showed off their sick athletic ability with the go-kart challenge, engaged in many high-fives and even got lit with a fun prank on Ling and Zing.

The paint job in their hallway had a similar look to their girl's room with the half-and-half contrasting paintwork on the wall. Say what you want about the style, the carpet did look plush enough to lie down on and have a mental breakdown. The pièce de résistance was the study's glass feature wall, which has the plus side of letting it some beautiful ambient light, and the downside that young teens of the future won't be able to sneak in and watch porn while keeping an ear out for Mum and Dad. 

The pink feature chair is one of the nicest pieces of furniture of the series so far, and if it goes missing it's because it's in the boot of my Nissan Wingroad.

Ling and Zing

Ling and Zing's guest room.
Ling and Zing's guest room. Photo credit: Mediaworks.

The Christchurch brothers were going for a "neutral, calming and skuxx" atmosphere in their guest room. Like a longboarding psychologist's office circa 2006, I guess. They had ideas like a bedside table with a map on it. Original. Ground-breaking. Chic.

The boys summed it up with the statement: "She's not lash this week, ladies and gentlemen." Attitudes? Finishing? Facial hair maintenance? Could be anything.

I really don't know why Ling and Zing are even in this competition.

The Fifty Shades of Grey-themed guest room made me think my eyes had lost the ability to see colour. Ling and Zing thought their low scores were because the judges were "old-fashioned". Because it's new and hip to live in a house that's falling down around you, obviously. If this house sells, I'll be very, very surprised.

Stace and Yanita

Stace and Yanita's media room.
Stace and Yanita's media room. Photo credit: Mediaworks NZ.

Stace and Yanita, who lost out on last week's win after the point was taken off them by the twins, had a chance to scrape back their own win after Yanita won an artist challenge. It meant the girls won a minus-two gamechanger, which will bring them further into emotional conflict when they have to turn on one of their friends.

The girls squeezed a tiny media room into a hallway - weird placement IMO, because when you're just chilling watching television, there's nothing you want more than having a long, drafty hallway at your back. Also lying on that couch approximately five inches from the television will probably give you a stigmatism. I get what they were going for with the decal on the wall and ceiling, but the combination of dark green wall and decaled ceiling would give me a mental breakdown.

The love was real between the teams was real during judging, as Stace and Yanita chose not to play their minus two on the boys, because Nate helped them finish their room "and they just worked really hard".

Twins Julia and Ali had their own fun two cents to contribute, saying "it's obvious they weren't going to play their minus two because the comments they got were much worse than Andy and Nate's''.

The girls don't see friendship, they only see numbers. Are they robots perhaps?

Andy and Nate took out the win, much to the joy of them and all their heterosexual female fans.

Will Stace and Yanita be forced to "play the game" next week, as Julia and Ali seem to think? Or will they continue to be decent human beings? Who knows!

Tune in this week to find out.

The Block NZ airs Mon-Wed 7:30pm and Sundays at 7pm on Three.