We catch up with the 2020 Block winners

 With auction day fast approaching, we sit down with each of the couples to talk about their futures and reflect on their Block experience and who will win

The Block Class of 2020! Our biggest congratulations to you for the massive efforts you put in we are so proud of you all.

HARRY AND TASH

How does it feel now it is all done?
Tash: It feels a bit weird. It’s done, we have moved out. It probably won’t hit for a few days that is has finished.

Harry: It’s Monday and Monday is always a hectic day but today is so peaceful and quiet. I look back at the experience and what we have done and I think we have given the house justice.

Tash: I’m so proud of what we have produced. Walking through it all clean this morning, with no mud in the back yard. You can just see how it’s all come together. It’s beautiful.

What was the toughest thing for both of you?

Tash: Having limited sleep is the hardest thing. It affects your mood, it affects the way you talk to each other. It affects your stress level. You tend to become overwhelmed when you are so tired.

Harry: The fact there is no real rest at all. You get your room what you are doing on the Sunday after room reveal, and from that time it is relentless, it doesn’t stop. You work until 8, 9, 10, 11 most nights and obviously close to the end of the week you often you work through to the morning. You get used to it in a way, but you don’t do your best work in the morning.

Were there any times where you thought you just wanted to walk away?

Tash: The past few weeks, there were definitely moments where we thought, I’m done, I can’t do this anymore. We were just over it.

Harry: It probably reflects on our last few weeks, it really was a struggle. We were told to enjoy it and have fun. I have tried to have fun in the last few weeks because of that, but it was still tough. If you remove yourself from the stress of the build, you have to have fun, otherwise, it becomes a real struggle.

 Is The Block what you thought it would be?

Tash: I did think it was going to be this hard, no doubt about it. I was worried about the mental side of things, the physical side of things, the lack of sleep. I was worried about all that. I expected all of that. You can expect anything as much as possible, and then you do it, and it’s a whole another level of just how hard it is.

Tash you have never renovated before, are you proud how you did?

I’ve never built, I’m not a handy person. I think I’ve definitely picked up on a lot of stuff through this whole experience.  I think out of everything the favourite thing is the styling. The sad thing is it’s normally the last thing and you usually have just one hour. The whole week and you get one hour to do your favourite thing of the week.

Harry, working with your daughter – how did it go?

Harry: Working with Natasha, it did go well. She focused a lot on getting the furniture, shopping a lot. I felt sometimes I would have liked her to be with me a lot more, to handle the pressure of being there and being the project manager with the trades. The constant of Foreman Keith and Foreman Dan coming in, pointing out a few aspects that drag you down. I think sometimes you need that moral support from your partner. It was a real challenge. The experience I have just been through, it wasn’t what I expected. Now knowing what we needed to do, I think the experience would be a lot easier.  I thought I would have more time to do the work myself. I’ve been through three renovations now, not including this one. I can do a lot of carpentry myself, but you don’t get a lot of opportunity on The Block, because at the end of the day it’s a TV show. You always get pulled aside, to explain about what’s going on. You have to rely on your trades. 

Tash, what was it like to work with your Dad?

Tash: it was really good working with Dad. There was a lot that we learnt from each other from this experience. We work similarly, but we work very differently. We both have very strong ideas. We are both very stubborn. We are very similar. I think sometimes that may have been our downfall a little bit.

The other contestants, you were really good mates with a few of them?

Tash: We are friends with everyone. We have been really lucky this year with having a really tight group of contestants. We haven’t really had any bickering with any of the contestants. I mean you can see George and Sarah they are the closest out of everybody, probably then Daniel and Jade. But we are also House 1, 2, and 3, we see each other a lot. I can’t thank The Block enough, to meet these people. We will have these guys as friends for life now.

How difficult was it the last three weeks to hear the judges feedback in particular?

Tash: I think after the week we had been through with our landscaping week at the front and then getting feedback that wasn’t great feedback when we had actually poured everything into… I feel like it was a bit of a downward spiral for us from then. That week really hit us hard. The following week’s feedback, we understood it. When you’ve got no money, you can’t pay your trades, you can’t do as well as you like to do. We didn’t end up finishing … then last night we had no money and we couldn’t execute what we wanted to do. So we knew we weren’t going to get great feedback. We knew that we were going to come last. So the past two weeks we were expecting that feedback. But when we were doing our front garden we weren’t expecting the feedback. That really hurt us. We came last.  It was crap.

COVID-19, the world has changed and it’s been a very different Block. Were you guys looking at the news a lot?

Harry: You don’t get the opportunity to focus on things. When you finish at 9 and 10 at night, you just sleep.  You haven’t got time to read and see what is going on around the world. 

What’s next for you guys, what do you want to get out of the show?

Tash: People always ask this question and we came on because we really wanted to do the show …. We do want to make some money off the show, so I can buy a house and Dad can pay off some mortgages. Other than that I’m not really sure. I think for us it’s about seeing what this experience will bring us. I didn’t come on here looking for anything in particular other than what the show can hopefully give us – some prize money at the end.

Tash: It’s not like we came on here expecting something, but if something did come up from it, we will totally look at it.

 Are you going to have a rest now?

Harry: I’m going to take a week off work. I was going to go back to work straight away, but I did contact my boss and he suggested I take another week off, just to come down from it all. 

Tash: I’ve got two weeks off, I’m so excited about. Then straight back to reality.

Take a look back through Harry and Tash's beautiful home HERE

SARAH AND GEORGE

How are you guys feeling? You’ve finished on a high.

Sarah:  The three wins and a car, that tipped us over the edge. What an amazing ride.

George: I think we deserved it. We worked our a..s off, the hard work really paid off. I’m so happy.

Where do you think it turned around for you guys?

Sarah: I think when we first won the upstairs we got a spring in our step and we got a taste of winning.  It made us hungry.

I know at times during the series with some of the judges comments you were pretty deflated, how would you describe that feeling and how did you get out of it?

Sarah: When you’ve put your heart and soul into something and then people tell you it’s bad or it’s not the best standard, it’s shattering. It really is a punch to the ego. It is difficult not to stay in that rut.  I think what really helped me was when I was down, George picked me up. When George was down, I picked him up. As a couple, I think we really worked well together and helped each other. You really just need to, otherwise you get stuck in a rut.

Were there times when you wanted to walk away?

George: There were times I wanted to go home because I missed home, but I never wanted to quit.

Sarah: You have to think, you are never going to get this opportunity again, and it is worth every moment of sadness. 

George: If we had walked away, we would not have a car. That’s the moral of the story. You can’t give up. If you work hard, good things can happen.

What was it like when you got that first room reveal win, it must have been an amazing feeling?

Sarah: That first room reveal win, it was amazing.  There were four rooms that we did that week that we revealed, so that made it extra special. It was tremendous. To win it was an epic result.

What was it like driving out of The Block for the last time today?

Sarah: It is bittersweet. You meet so many amazing people along the way. We are happy to be going home to some sort of normality, but at the same time a bit upset because these people have been such an important part of your life. 

George: It has been a six month journey really, so we have come to know everyone.

What was it like having that break because of COVID-19, was it a good thing or a bad thing?

Sarah: I actually think it was a good thing having the break, reflecting back on it. It was hard to go on The Block, go home, have the break and then come back. But I think it was really good for us. I think we got a fresh perspective. I think at the start it all hit us so hard we didn’t get a chance to catch our breath. We came back with a fresh mindset and a positive mindset, and we went upwards from there.

What was the most challenging thing about the whole experience?

George: I think the most challenging thing was being away from home. But also having a Pandemic happen during the show. I think people forgot it happened. That was really hard.

Sarah: I think the toughest thing with that was we had to order everything, because of the Pandemic.  We had to order everything. We didn’t know what we doing, it was week three. It was hard because you were picking things that you hoped would be good for the end.  It was hard to be able to plan the rest of your home when you didn’t even know the judges feedback.

What are your favourites part of the house?

George: I am in love with our arched door. And to be honest I’m in love with the pool area, the back yard. It’s phenomenal.

Sarah: I love the kitchen too. I loved the curved Island bench.

Is it what you expected The Block?

George: It’s not what I expected, and I mean that very respectfully. I thought it would be a lot easier to be honest. I was in la-la land. My head was in the clouds. I thought at the beginning they couldn’t just put us outside to sleep, they would give us a hotel. But no one helps you. There are no fairies that paint the rooms when you are asleep. You are literally on your own. So that’s what I was naïve about. We learnt the hard way but we got there in the end.

You guys work so well together, you guys didn’t appear to fight at all?

George: I think we had three fights, and that was more like ‘where’s the remote, you go get it,’. 

Sarah: It’s a lovely thing to see just how well we worked together.

George: In the real world, to be fair, I’m up at 4 am, she gets home quite late, and then I go to bed early. So there is not a lot of time spent together. So to come on the show it was unchartered territory for us. But we had a rough trot over the years, we’ve had some damaged property, we got through it, we planned a wedding together, and now we have done The Block. We are survivors.

I know you get the baby question all the time ….

Sarah: We always said we wanted to have a family this year. I think personally for me I was more against it then George was. But I think having The Block experience and seeing how fatigued we are, that’s what I was worried about having that fatigue. But we’ve done it, and I can see we work really well together when we are in that fatigued state. So I’m ready.  It’s time.

What do you want to do now? Do you want to go back to teaching?

Sarah: It’s hard to say. I don’t know how it will all pan out. I would love to be able to do something in the industry. I have been saying for a while I have been saying I don’t love teaching anymore. But, who knows.

I know you guys have made some good friends, was it really special to have someone like Harry and Tash as neighbours?

George: I think it was one of the most important parts of our journey. Having a father figure, having a sister figure. Especially, Harry, he was so easy to talk to. He was so great.  He is so genuine. There were never issues with them.  We helped each other out the whole way.

Were there times when you thought you weren’t going to get to this day?

Sarah: Of course. It felt like it dragged on forever, particularly this season. It was never-ending. But we are here.  Now you think, it went fast. I thought the first four weeks went longer than the last eight weeks.

George: I do feel sorry for people who suffer from depression and anxiety, because I think you kind of get a bit of that on The Block, being quite truthful. You get into bad depressions. This is too hard. It’s just that fatigue. You are only fighting your mind. If you can overcome that, you can do The Block.  

Take a look back through Sarah and George's beautiful home HERE
 

DANIEL AND JADE

How proud of yourselves are you that you have finished The Block?

Daniel: What a massive achievement, one to be selected to be on The Block and two, to be able to complete it and to have held our heads high. We have had that much fun, we’ve made great friends. We have walked away with our heads held high.

Jade: I’m super proud of Daniel. I’m super proud of myself. We took a leap to apply in the beginning. It wasn’t a by chance thing. We had issues, we had family issues with Isla and we said, we were committed to doing it. Persistence paid off and year after year we kept applying, how much harder can life get? We had already been thrown so much bad stuff and to be put on the show, and selected, to ride this ride and finish it… to say we’ve done it. It’s pretty awesome, we’ve done it.

What was is like, that drive here today, knowing you’ve done The Block?

Daniel: The last drive to HQ. It hasn’t sunk in.

Jade: I don’t think it will sink it until we are at home, then you start to think about what you’ve been doing … where you have been the last 18 weeks. How has it unfolded.

What was the toughest thing for you guys?

Daniel: The toughest thing was probably the mindset and the mental challenges that are thrown at you all the time. You have a lot of trades that are relying on you for answers straight away, you’ve got a lot of production going around you as well. Trying to cope with the pressure, dealing with the day to day chores The Block has for you, it’s a pretty big effort.

Jade:  Staying focused when you get thrown a curveball, and not trying to break down when you get thrown a curveball and are trying to come up with a solution to that problem. Don’t get upset about it, try not to get cross about it. Try to work it out in a civil manner and resolve it. That was a huge challenge because it’s so easy to say I’m going to give up, but you just don’t.  You just have to keep going.

I’ve watched you guys and I feel like you lean on each other really well which is nice to see. That was very important for you guys on The Block?

Jade: I think we have got each other. Sometimes I felt alone because going out shopping I felt I was doing that on my own and I know Daniel had a team back at The Block with him. As hard as it was for him because he could never leave The Block, he still had people with him all the time. I know at the end of the day we are in it together.  It’s just Daniel and I, we have always got each other. This was an experience we wanted for us, and if we didn’t do it together, every little bit of it, we would have fallen apart. If we did get cross at any time, we would walk away from each other to defuse the situation. We’ve been together a long time, and we’ve been together through a lot of hard stuff.

Daniel: At the end of the day, Jade and I are a team. We have to rely on each other. As much as you rely on trades, no one knows you like your partner does. You have to bounce off each other.

Looking at your house, you’ve done a great job – what are some of your favourite parts of the house?

Daniel: One of my favourite things is to look at the house from the road (New St) and look at how we have restored it and how beautiful it looks. I like a lot of older stuff, now we have restored this old gal … it was quite easily going to get pushed over most likely…now that will stand for another 100 years. That’s pretty special.

Jade: I have lots of favourites. I love the kids zone upstairs and now seeing our kids in that zone and how much they love it and how much appreciate it, I go wow. We wanted that to be a free bedroom, study and retreat, that is was it is. The kids are loving it. We got a little bit of flack for it, but now to see how it is being used… I love it. It’s such a great feature of our home.

On that, I can’t imagine how it would have been like to be away from the kids that long. How was it? 

Jade: It was the hardest thing ever to be away from the kids.

Daniel: Now you’ve been away from the kids, it feels like the 12 weeks has flown really.

Jade: It’s just hard because that is all I have known as a Mum for the last 10 years really, being a parent. We do soccer, we do the sports, you are running your kids left right and centre. Pickups, drop-offs, Isla with all her therapy sessions. I’m a constant taxi to three children all the time. That’s the world that I know and that I’m used to. I don’t go constantly shopping or renovating, because that’s our life.  Daniel is working four jobs to pay for all that. We miss the kids like crazy because that’s all we know. We know they were missing us as well. There were lots of late night calls. Those things pull at your heartstrings. Because if you think about the kids at the forefront too much, you know you are going to lose focus on your build, but they are always in your mind. But you have to think this is why we are here, for them. We miss them like crazy, but this is all for them.

What was it like when the kids saw the house, did it make it all worth it?

Jade: It was totally worth it to see them and their reaction to the house. When they were upstairs, or running up and down the hallway. Lounging around, this is beautiful, this is why we are here, it is all about them. Hopefully, they can see we have done it, we have been away, we have made sacrifices, in their life they will understand what it is like to make a sacrifice, to give up something ..to better something else.

Daniel:  To see the kids in the space, now seeing how our three kids have used the upstairs space and the kid's zone, I can just imagine the parents moving in. It’s not a massive space and having a study nook, I can imagine for those teenage kids, how good would it be to be up there.

What’s next for you guys?

Jade: Firstly we have to get home and go into isolation for the next couple of weeks. That’s the most important thing. We don’t want to take Coronavirus to a small country town. Obviously, Daniel will be at home.

Daniel: I can’t wait to get back to the farm. There was a lot that I pre-organised before we went on the show, but now we have come back from the break from Corona, Dad and my brother handled a lot of contracts that I normally would have handled… so it would be good to see the progress that has been made.

You are representing farmers – you don’t see a lot of that on TV. Do you want to inspire people like yourselves, that you can have a crack?

Jade: I know for Daniel, its farmers and people with disabilities, we would love to inspire. Just kids in general, you see so many kids that just give up and they don’t appreciate themselves. It’s tough. Life is tough, with all the social pressures these days. …being on devices, having this and that. We are really after being here in Brighton, just simple people. We like the simple things in life. Pack up our caravan, get on the road, no power, barefoot. I just hope that for Daniel and I, you don’t have to have everything. It’s OK to fail. It’s OK to not be the best at everything. You can still push forward and be good at something, and make something of your life.

Daniel: It’s also not about doing it for the farmers, it’s about also seeing more City folk in the country… to realise what we do, what farmers go through, what we try and supply for our country, and the world… I feel people in the City misread what farmers do. if I could do anything I would love to do something where people come from the City to the farm and experience it.

Take a look back through Daniel and Jade's gorgeous home HERE 

LUKE AND JASMIN

Are you really proud about how you’ve gone on The Block?

Jasmin: Definitely. If you don’t feel proud there is something wrong with you, because it is a monumental effort to do what we have done for 12 weeks, especially with Covid.

Luke: We have all come such a long way. I just never thought we would be able to get this much work done in 12 weeks. For it to be over like that… and to go back to normal life, it’s scary.

Jasmin: That house is beautiful from the front door all the way to the back. She is a beauty.

That first week you struggled to work with the 1910s era, now that you have finished, is this what you first envisaged with this house?

Jasmin: No this house is not what we thought we would do, but this house is us. It’s our taste and I think it has worked out better. To be able to pay tribute to the house and the heritage, but we did it with our own little twist.

What is your favourite part of the house?

Luke: My favourite part of the house is probably the back yard. The way that everything flows into that back yard.

What was the most challenging thing about The Block?

Jasmin: I think for us just the era and getting our heads around that and how we were going to please the judges, in the old part of the house.

Luke: We had to rejig our whole Block dream. We thought we were going to come and build a super modern, Melbourne house with our little twist on it. But then to find out we were going to have to tweak it and change it all to a federation coastal bungalow was a shock to the system. But I think we adapted really well and our end product is very us and it’s beautiful.

What a shame to lose by half a point, a couple of weeks in a row?

Jasmin: We’ve actually had a bit of a tough ride. We won the master bathroom then we had to share half the winnings with Jimmy and Tam because of the gnome. Then we won the double room upstairs and we were really happy. But then Shaynna called us copiers and that ruined that, and then we won the hallway but then we didn’t win because Jimmy and Tam used the gnome again … and then we were so close to winning last night… last night was the one that really hurt.

How are you feeling today?

Jasmin: I was really down today. You wonder a lot of things. You wonder if there is a lot going on that you don’t know about.

It would have been hard when Shaynna talked about the copying, that would have been hard to deal with?

Jasmin: That devastated me. I’ve got an inspirational album that I use for inspiration. But of course, I never got to show Shaynna that, because when she spoke to me it was impromptu and I wasn’t expecting it.  It hurt, but at the same time, I said I’m not a designer…. I’m just a school teacher who has come on to a show to create rooms, there is never a rule that said you couldn’t do that. No one ever said that was allowed for better of a word. I know that other contestants did similar things with other rooms. It’s not that you are allowed to do it.

Luke: We live in this digital world these days, and you draw inspiration from everything. There are so many photos we could show that we weren’t copying.

Jasmin: But in certain parts we were and if someone wants to recreate my work, then go for it. It really hurt me and it slammed my confidence for some time.

Let’s focus on the positives now – what are some of the fun things about doing The Block?

Luke: Just the fun time with all our neighbours. We had a midnight rave party with all the other contestants which was fun. You have to do that kind of stuff to keep yourself sane. You have to have a drink between each coat as we would say. When a coat of paint is drying we’d pop over and have a bevvie with our neighbour… that’s the only way we’d get through The Block I think.

Is it as hard as you thought it would be?

Luke: It’s that and then some. You think when you are sitting at home there is all this camera trickery and they possibly couldn’t turn over that space in six days, and they had help. Everything you see, it’s so raw.

Jasmin: Then in some ways, it was easier because we had and easier ride because we all got along. In previous seasons that hasn’t happened. But we all had support right to the end.  Things like that make the whole experience a little bit easier. Our trade team too…they worked hard.

How was it not having the kids?

Jasmin: Luke and I enjoyed some of the time we had together not with the kids, together alone. It was the most time we had together without the kids. When you have little kids, that becomes your world. It becomes about them. On The Block you are so busy you don’t get to think about them and I felt a bit guilty about that. But once you see them, it puts it all in perspective.

Together as a couple – have you survived?

Jasmin: Our motto is work hard, play hard, stay married. That’s our motto the whole series.  We have worked hard, we have played hard, and we are still married.

Take a look back through Luke and Jasmin's stunning home HERE 

 
JIMMY AND TAM

How are you guys feeling now The Block is done?

Jimmy: It’s a very surreal feeling. We are super proud of what we’ve done. We love everyone here. Not just the other contestants, the crew. They have made this journey of ours absolutely incredible.

Tam: We are so grateful for the experience we have been given, and it’s just overwhelming. The whole experience has been overwhelming because everything happens at such a fast pace.  You don’t get time to sit back and really take on board what has happened. Now that it is finished, it’s starting to hit us that we have done it.

Jimmy: In the car on the way over here we were talking about how excited we were when we first found out we were on The Block… now we are done. It’s done. We started this thing at the end of February. It’s not the end of June and we are finished, it’s unheard of. Normally it’s three months and you’re done.

What is hard in hindsight having that break?

Jimmy: I think it was a good thing physically. It was definitely a good thing physically to have that rest, but not mentally. It was so hard leaving knowing we possibly weren’t coming back to finish The Block. In our heads no one knew what Covid was doing, no one really knew what was going on. That was soul-destroying, mentally very tough.

I remember the first couple of weeks you guys were surprised you could actually do The Block, was there a bit of doubt in the beginning?

Tam: 100 per cent. When we were first in the car on the way to The Block, we were like, can we actually do this? We had never renovated. You don’t know. There are so many doubts. There is so much unfamiliar territory.  You just don’t know what is going on.

Jimmy: We had hoped to be the mediocre couple. We didn’t think we were going to be the stand out couple. We didn’t want to be the couple left at the bottom every time. We just wanted to be somewhere in the middle, doing our thing, just getting it done. Trying not to toot our own horns, we have blown this thing out of the water. It’s so humbling.

When did you realise, you know what, this is something we can actually do, and do very well.

Jimmy: We got the first two-room wins at the beginning. That there was a massive boost for us. We realised we were cut out to do this.

Tam: We just knew we were on the right track, it was really humbling to get all the positive feedback from the judges as well. When you are getting that, it’s crazy.  That’s when we realised we could do it.

The other contestants, of course, you are all getting along … there was a bit of resentment about you guys and your house, probably unfairly so?

Jimmy: The easy house was thrown around a lot this season. Hopefully during the course of viewing the other contestants will realise we didn’t have it easy. We did just as much work as them, if not more.

Tam: We just worked our butts off.

Jimmy: Our builders, all the guys, they were absolutely amazing. We worked from day one as a team. Every goal we set them, they achieved it.

Tam: It’s about having good organisation, making good and fast decisions.

Jimmy: Decisions are vital. If you are unsure of what you want, it trickles down. If you on Monday can go…this is what we are doing… you get it done.  If you are throwing out ideas you are wasting days, you just don’t have time. I think we were really good at making decisions quickly.  You just have to give them exactly what you want. It’s all about making decisions and having an awesome team.

What was it like getting so much positive feedback throughout the show?

Tam: It was really amazing getting the positive feedback. We have been blown away from the feedback we have gotten. We had a couple of weeks of feedback where it’s been pretty tough, but you have got to take that on board which I think we did. We did change out a walk-in robe. We also put a dining set in. The judges have done this for a long time. We respect what they say. We are not here to beat down what they say. We would never do that. Some things we might not agree with, but that’s because we have put so much time and effort into the build. For example, they thought out TV room upstairs should have been a work from home space, but we had a long term vision to deliver that in our studio, and that’s what we did.  That was hard to take because we knew what our vision was in the long run. Now if they went through the house they would see the continuity, and see how functional the space is, I think they would be like, they are all over it.

Jimmy: When you’ve got Scotty and Shelley coming to you on a Friday and saying you guys belong in the Hall of Fame, and you are GOATS, the greatest Block contestants all time, that blows your mind.

That leads me to my next question, would you do it again if there was an Allstars?

Jimmy: 100 per cent – as long as we could have our builders, JETCON. We would want our builders back.

Do you think this show will change your life, do you want to do other things?

Tam:  I would love to go down the path of interior design, something like that. We would love to be part of The Block family some way because we feel so attached to these people. I think this is just a stepping stone for us. Bigger things are around the corner.

Jimmy: We are also in two minds where we want to settle. I think we are going to let this go to air, see where the opportunity takes us. Obviously, we will chase down the opportunities too, we want to work for them, they just won’t happen.  The whole thing has been amazing.

Take a look back through Jimmy and Tam's incredible 1950's inspired home HERE 

Recap ALL the Block room reveals HERE 

Take a look back at all the previous auction results HERE