So what happens when the cameras turn off?
What happens at The Block stays at The Block right? The rooms are all handed in, the cameras have turned off and you’re looking forward to a week of sleep and catching up on Game of Thrones… well that’s exactly how Simon and I felt after finishing the 12-week build that was The Glasshouse two years ago. We figured it was three months until the auction and we’d have a massive holiday, how wrong we were.
The build that never ends
The contestants’ rooms are all built, furnished and finished, but what’s not seen is the juggernaut that is the rest of the build. The common areas, the outside and the rooftop works keep on keeping on, scrambling to be finished on time for the ever-looming auction. At The Glasshouse in Prahran, there were up to thirty or more tradies for about three months, after we had left, finishing off the outside of the build. They worked literally up ’til the auction day, and there was still work left to be done after that. It’s an immense and thankless job, one that doesn’t get too much air time but is crucial to the contestants’ results at the end of the show. These workers are the backbone of The Block, we got to know many, and though they’re not part of the Channel Nine crew, were a huge part of our lives on the show.
The rooms
During the show, you may see the contestants’ previous rooms, covered up, full of rubbish and tools, and generally looking like a war zone. This is the ugly part of the build. The beautiful rooms are finished, clean and absolutely perfect (well that’s debatable), but after judging day and when the filming of each room had been finished, these once-pristine rooms become the toolsheds, the rubbish piles and the stock rooms for all the spaces that are coming up. It’s a heart-breaking thing to see a finished room look like this, but it’s a dirty necessity to have to use these spaces in order to build whatever is on the cards for that week. Back when we had finished our master bedroom at The Glasshouse, our pristine master suite lasted all of two days before the walls were torn down and the carpet ripped up to accommodate structural steel that needed to be put in place for the exterior facade. This probs should have been done weeks before we got there, but a lot of the time the structural builders have trouble keeping up with the contestants’ relentless pace. We absolutely flipped our lids, seeing our room torn up like that, and while eventually it was re-built, it’s hard to say whether it was to the standard that our ‘super builder’ Moz had finished it to.
The clean up
It’s a never-ending struggle to keep the apartments clean on The Block. Builders, camera crew, runners, producers, they all leave their mess and they all leave their mark. Walls get trashed, floors get scratched and there’s a never-ending layer of dust over everything. The trick is to cover everything up and put everything away. Eventually everyone leaves once the show is finished and it’s only then you can get back to rebuilding your rooms to the standard they were judged.
The sale
The real-estate agents treat your apartment like any other sale, the place is constantly being photographed, there’s an endless stream of buyers coming through and cocktail parties are thrown to schmooze any investors. There’s plenty of meetings with the agents to nut out any strategies and directions for sale, the trick is juggling all this with all the other responsibilities thrown at you.
The non-stop parties
Well, ‘Party’ is a strong word, let’s use ‘function’, it’s a bit more civilised. After the cameras are turned off, the apartments are literally turned over to the sponsors. Of course, the juggernaut that is The Block relies on sponsors such as Beaumont Tiles, Freedom Kitchens, Mitre 10, and the apartments continue to represent the offering of the brands. So you go along, you smile, you pose for endless selfies, it’s very tiring but its also good fun as it’s a chance to enjoy your space as it was designed for, entertaining.
Celeb life
Who doesn’t love a free plug? So, it’s endless radio interviews, TV crosses and phone calls with journalists. Every time we ‘won’ a room on TV, Channel 9 flew us down to The Block for a live cross the morning after the reveal was televised. It’s exhausting, but its a fun peek into the entertainment word. There’s plenty of ‘celebrity’ (another loose term) events, sponsor endorsements and the odd perk of fickle fame. We were lucky enough to have a bit of fun at the Melbourne Cup, we had plenty of concert tickets and the odd party to attend, perks indeed!
Check out the highlights of the latest season of The Block:
