A common critique of this year’s The Block 2026 style has been that it all looks a bit… bland.
The sameness across all the rooms this season traces back to a design brief Darren Palmer gave the teams right at the beginning of The Block 2026. Before they even started their first guest bedroom challenge, Darren told the teams his research into the Mount Eliza market suggested they should aim for “white, light and bright” interiors and a “quiet luxury” aesthetic.
He specifically showed Kim Kardashian’s famously bare minimalist Hollywood home as an example of what they should be aiming for, which resulted in some super bleak, beige results and Darren needing to backtrack on his instructions.
This brings us to main ensuite reveals, with the teams now armed with a new design brief. On Sunday, Chantel and Wyatt took home the CommBank budget estimate award of $10k while Rick and Tayla scored their first room win by playing their bonus point gnome and edging out Chantel and Wyatt by half a point.
But how do their designs go when judged by someone other than The Block judges, interior designers Shaynna Blaze and Darren Palmer, and real estate agent Marty Fox?
A popular blog on TLB Interiors by Melbourne interior designer Chris Carroll offers weekly recaps of the room reveals — and Chris doesn’t hold back on his design opinions.
After Sunday’s episode, Chris wrote he “witnessed a slew of functionality fails that deemed many of these spaces completely unusable.”
For him, the biggest bathroom red flags were: “We had basins you can’t wash your hands in. We had a tiled sofa in the shower. We had double shower heads too close to one another. And we had mirrors instead of shaving cabinets.”
He noted that Rick and Tayla’s winning ensuite did not deserve the top prize. “I have to ask the obvious question… why a main ensuite with two unusable basins can take out the win. It seems a pretty big blunder to overlook,” he continued.
“Rick and Tayla got the positioning wrong when planning out their vanity, basin height and tap install.” Oops.
As for Courtney and Sev, he questioned the functionality of their ‘wow’ designs. “Look beyond those initial wow moments and you would find using this ensuite a pain in the butt day-to-day,” he said.
“Firstly, the mirror. No matter which basin you’re standing at, you’ll have a mirror line through your face,” he said. “The bench, I don’t get it. It’s an oversized tile slab you get to… sit on? Lay out on? I would need major spinal manipulation if I spent more than five minutes lying down on that mass.”
Chris offered praise for Adam and Jolene’s ensuite for adding a bath. “They’re the only team to include a bath in their ensuite. For us bath takers, this is a huge selling point.” However, he said there was too much colour in the space. “If you’re aiming for quiet luxury, you want colour and pattern to whisper. The green tiles are already doing that. To bring in basins in a similar tone is too much noise.”
As for Lisa and Rosco, he was unimpressed by their ‘dated’ aesthetic. “The vanity zone in Lisa and Rosco’s main ensuite feels a little, dare I say it… dated,” he said.
“Stylistically it doesn’t feel very current, and overall it reads a little too warm.”
An interior designer chooses the best room from Main Ensuite Week
For this interior designer, the real winner was Chantel and Wyatt, a team which technically would have won if Rick didn’t play his bonus point.
“I’d place Chantel and Wyatt’s main ensuite ahead of Rick and Tayla’s… overall the material choices and product selections in this bathroom are more harmonious, elevated, and current.”
In particular, Chris noted the big difference between the top two teams was in the positioning of their shower heads.
“A double shower in a bathroom evokes luxury, for sure. But the clincher is that you need enough room to execute it properly. Chantel and Wyatt got it right, in terms of placing the waterfall shower heads on opposite walls,” he said. “Tayla and Rick… put two heads side by side and it just doesn’t work. There’s not enough space between them.”
The Block airs on Sundays at 7pm and Monday – Wednesday at 7:30pm on Channel 9 and 9Now.
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