House Rules

^I was watching The Voice and MasterChef so I missed tonight’s episode (and the ads). Thanks for letting me know.
Why was it that each time Johanna spoke to the teams on site regarding the bonus room and statement piece winner, that other workers had to be absent? Were the producers afraid of them leaking results?
Fiona and Nicole’s feud with the other teams hit a new low at the renovation of Sean and Ella’s house in Hobart, this time it was about the ceiling. Three teams (Victoria, SA and QLD) agreed to a flat ceiling, then Harry decided to raise the dining room ceiling to install the DIY pendant lights. Add to that a dispute on the zone boundary and you get an extraordinary outburst from Fiona.

[quote=“JohnsonTV, post:210, topic:633”]
Some of their criticisms went too far, e.g. Troy said the black fishscale tiles in the ensuite (by Sean and Ella) reminded him of a crematorium and gave the Tasmanians two points. It’s OK for the homeowners to dislike the black colour, but at least they should have acknowledge other teams’ efforts.[/quote]
I think two is the lowest score any homeowner or judge has ever given, and that bathroom (and whatever their other room was) even if not to your taste or not to the house rules was certainly not that low.

As for questionable judging although I hate Fiona and Nicole I really think the judges were harsh in their scoring today giving them a 6,7 and 8 when in the VT they only really criticised the position of the coffee table. It was by far their best effort and probably worthy of 8s and 9s, especially when Aaron and Daniella were getting 8s for their quite rightly criticised kitchen.

Overall though loved this house - though hated how all week Seven trailed it as “the best renovation in House Rules history” and then when they aired the full clip tonight it was “one of the best renovations in House Rules history”.

I’m guessing Troy and Bec walk out tomorrow having had a fail on their bonus room - and to be fair having seen it now I wouldn’t blame them. Easily the best of the series.

The bonus room has obviously been added just to add friction between the contestants. All I have to say to Troy is karma is a bitch. He is an absolute flog and the way he spoke to Bec when they were painting was deplorable. Biggest glass jaw

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Andrew recalls how he cut his wrist during the renovation of Aaron and Daniella’s Gold Coast house:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/television/house-rules-andrew-king-in-accident-i-thought-i-could-lose-my-brother-says-twin/news-story/1a3341203db674f483f30e368e1deecf

His arm remained in a cast for two weeks, and he wore an arm guard for another four.
He has been told it could take two years for feeling to return to his hand.

The accident would have certainly affected Andrew’s hand movement and Jono would have to do most of the physical work for the remaining renovations, if the twins made that far.

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Pretty scary, probably the best contestant mix ever having two ambos on site to help the onsite medics. In a situation like that you’d want as many professionally trained people as possible. Glad it looks like he’ll be alright.

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Just like splitting the zones just to have them fight over a few mil here and there. Not only does it make it more difficult for the teams to pull together a cohesive idea (i.e. a master suite including the en-suite, a kitchen-diner) it makes the reveal show very disjointed. We’re supposed to believe when a team walks in from the hallway into the dining room that they didn’t notice it when they walked passed it to get to the kitchen before.

Talking of zones a major flaw in this weeks design - you have to walk right through the house to get from the Master bedroom to the childrens bedrooms. That is just poor design which could easily have been avoided with a minor rejig of the hallways.

As for Andrews accident - just couldn’t watch that bit!

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I’d imagine there would also have been a few interesting WH&S meetings with Channel 7 and Worksafe inspectors over it all too.

If we look ahead for a moment, I am actually quite excited about some of the exterior renovations we could see. If Aaron and Daniella get through to this stage which is quite likely at the moment, then we will get our first back yard renovation backing onto a waterway, a canal on the Gold Coast in this scenario, in House Rules history. I was actually hoping that Andrew and Jono’s house, being in Mandurah, would have been on one of the canals there but it was located further inland somewhere instead, however we now find out that Aaron and Daniella’s Gold Coast house is on the canals there instead. I think we could see some pretty interesting designs here, making use of the canal frontage. I also don’t know what would count as Fiona and Nicole’s front and back yards of their Lake Fyan’s house since there don’t appear to be any boundaries to their property in the bush there. This is if, by some miracle, they get through to this stage of the competition after the first two elimination and are kept in just for their entertainment value to stir up more trouble when paired up with other teams and ‘zone wars’ break out and the like

It depends how they do the elimination because I remember the Tassie team last season or the one before were top of the table or near the top but were eliminated because of a challenge house that was thrown in. I remember knowing ahead of time about that one because we drove past and saw the backyard hadn’t been done. I’ve got a friend who has driven past this year’s Tassie house last week but I won’t post spoilers.

For those who saw last night’s episode and have seen the promo for Sunday night, the three judges are finally going to make an appearance at home base in the reveal episode to deliver their verdicts and scores directly to the teams, as I thought should have been done from the start of this series and has been done in recent seasons. Perhaps this is because this is an elimination round and thus we can expect the same thing for all future reveals in the competition which will all likely result in eliminations. Nonetheless it looks like things get really firey between Troy and LLB to the point where Troy actually has the nerve to criticise his design style to his face!!

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C21 reports Germany will show an adaptation of House Rules. It will be made for Sat.1 by RedSeven Entertainment, part of the Red Arrow Entertainment Group.

Would love a version here in the UK but suspect local planning rules and the nature of British homes probably means it’s a non-starter.

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###HOUSE RULES set to return in 2018

Channel Seven today announced it has commissioned a sixth season of its top-rating design and renovation format, HOUSE RULES.

Commenting on the announcement, Evan Wilkes HOUSE RULES executive producer, said: “We’re so happy with how the audience has received this season of House Rules - it’s currently the number one show in the country. We’re excited to confirm that we’re coming back for a new season in 2018.

“It’s also great to see another Aussie made format, created here at Channel Seven, enjoying this success,” he added.

HOUSE RULES sees six teams gamble with the most important possession in their lives: their home.

Teams must completely renovate six houses in only six weeks. Together, they travel the country, handing over the keys to their homes, leaving their opposition to transform every room in their house. Guided by just five ‘house rules’, teams are each given a designated zone in the house. They must draw on all their creative talents, determination and strategy to produce breathtaking reveals that impress not only the home owners but the judges too.

Casting is now open for the sixth season. To apply, log onto: yahoo7.com.au/houserules

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Seven must have been encouraged by the current season’s ratings surge in recent weeks. If it can fix the show’s slow start in the first two weeks (which has been a feature since the show began) it will be even better.

Edit: just caught up with the reveals of Sean and Ella’s house. Seems the producers tried to skim over Troy and Bec’s walkout. The promo which was on most of last week actually showed more of the aftermath of the couple leaving the set. Then, at the start of Aaron and Daniella’s renovation, we were shown Troy and Bec returning to the set, and Johanna showed all six teams their progressive scores after five renos, as if nothing had happened at all.
I do sympathise with Troy and Bec though. They put so much effort in the bonus room only to get a fail from the homeowners because of mismatching bedside furniture. Apart from that, the transformation of Sean and Ella’s house was one of the best renovations of the season. Only four points separated the top and bottom teams. Kate and Harry jumped to the top of leaderboard thanks to a 10 from LLB even though he dislike some features of the dining room and ensuite.
Sean and Ella were harsh in their critiques of Fiona and Nicole’s renovation, only giving the ladies 4 out of 10. Even the judges were more generous.
Sean and Ella’s house was renovated in the first two weeks of February. The headline on The Mercury placed on the coffee nook in the kitchen read Bullied for being Tasmanian, which appeared on the front page on February 14. Also during the judges reveal, LLB mentioned he was at Stockholm Design Week the previous week (February 6-12).

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Seven should consider adding a pre-renovation challenge/week next year like what The Block does. It probably wouldn’t dramatically improve the launch figures but it might help them ramp up the drama quicker and would also push the expensive home renovation episodes back a week which theoretically means they should rate better given the way the show builds week by week.

From this week the show will only be shown on Sundays to Tuesdays to ensure a reveal episode is on either Sunday or Monday.

Aaron and Daniella call themselves a glamour couple and it was reflected on their house rules: a tropical oasis, GC bling (we already saw a bit on Daniella’s hard hat), 5 star hotel design suite.
Unfortunately, the producers decided to break the main bedroom into two zones which led to more friction between Fiona and Nicole and Troy and Bec. Both teams were at fault: the ladies for not amending the ensuite layout so the toilet did not creep into the bedroom space, and Troy and Bec for insisting a wall be set up to separate the ensuite from the bedroom.
Fiona and Nicole was very close from winning the statement piece with their registration for a star for 8-month-old Brooklyn, what a brilliant area. The registration date (February 27) also gives away the renovation period - last week of February.

Aaron and Daniella wanted the lounge and dining room to face the backyard swimming pool and the canal to entertain guests I assume? Also the layout was perhaps done for security purposes - the couple did not want access from entry through the gym to the children’s bedrooms?

[quote=“eddel, post:231, topic:633”]
Seven should consider adding a pre-renovation challenge/week next year like what The Block does. [/quote]
I don’t think that would help. In fact it would be a turn-off.

In what way? I haven’t really watched the show the last couple of seasons so can’t comment on the content but it’s clear that Seven needs to make changes to help smooth the transition from MKR a bit, unless it’s just a scheduling issue?

I’m thinking viewers prefer that they get stuck into it rather than have more distractions early on. Maybe there could be a special ep that introduces the teams and provides a challenge where the winner gets to choose their rooms and the other teams rooms but it’s difficult to say whether that’s better or a ratings winner.

You also have to remember that The Voice and MasterChef launch at the same time. There is big interest for those shows initially but then interest drops off quickly and House Rules pulls ahead.

Generally it’s the renovation episodes that rate lower than the reveals. Seven already tweaked it a bit this year by splitting the reveals into two episodes and reducing the amount of reno stuff.

Maybe the reno stuff could be reduced further. Otherwise, I don’t know what else they could to get a bigger launch audience. Maybe have the MKR final on a Monday and launch on a Tuesdsy which woul muck up the scheduling of the other shows?

Seven were again quite naughty regarding last night’s episode. All along we believed the great battle was between Troy & LLB and he was criticising his design style. As it turned out, it was actually Drew that Troy was having a go at first because of the lowly score of 3 out of 10 that Drew gave him when Drew was only trying to score Troy fairly based on what they had achieved in their whole zone and LLB was just trying to make Troy see reason as to why he got the low score. There were some aspects to his zone that were good and others that were really bad in Drew’s opinion so he had to score accordingly. But Troy had to get all aggressive because he is at risk of elimination. I’m just shocked that it was actually Drew that started this incident, not LLB as we were all led to believe but we all know that we shouldn’t trust Seven’s promos, right? :smirk::smirk:

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