The Block returns 7:00 pm Sunday, August 23, on Nine and 9Now for the shows 16th season, featuring five period homes from the 1910s, 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.
The five period homes have been uprooted and transported to a 2761-square metre block of land in the affluent suburb of Brighton in Melbourne, within walking distance of the beach and minutes from the Brighton Beach Boxes.
Harry and Tash, Victoria
• Harry and Tash are The Block’s first ever father and daughter renovation duo.
• Harry was born in Cyprus and came to Australia when he was four.
• Tash hopes to enter the property market with her partner Brad.
• Harry and Tash’s family also consists of mother Andrea and brother Jake.
• They have a huge extended family and enjoy going overseas for holidays, particularly to Greece.
• Tash loves music theatre and is known to bust out a show tune while driving.
Harry, 57 IT Manager
Harry has renovation experience but he wouldn’t call himself an expert.
“We renovated a smaller Californian bungalow, the front and a back extension, but that was about thirty years ago,” Harry says.
“The second house that I live in now, we finished six years ago, put on a second storey, and I thought that came up really well.”
Harry was born in Cyprus and migrated to Australia at the age of four. He lives with his wife Andrea (Tash’s mum) in the suburb next to Brighton, where this season of The Block is located.
He knows that doing The Block with someone other than his spouse will be challenging.
“I used to travel for work for two, three weeks at a time, but this is the longest time we will ever be apart,” he says. “It’s going to be quite a challenge for her as well. Maybe she will walk by to check on me.”
Tash, 32, Social Media and Production Management
Tash lives with her partner Brad in the inner Melbourne suburb of Richmond and works on social media and production management at a PR agency.
“With production management there are so many skills that I think will be great on The Block. I am used to working with tight deadlines and ensuring the job gets done,” she says.
Sarah and George, New South Wales
• George has a huge Pokémon collection.
• They call the suburb Oran Park home.
• George’s pride and joy is his Harley-Davidson.
• Sarah loves leopard print.
• George is known for his perfect lawn. It isn’t unusual to catch him with a measuring tape and scissors, hand trimming any blade that is fractionally too long.
Together for eight years and married for three, the self-described “westies’ have a relationship built on old-school values and new-school quirk.
Sarah and George have some solid experience. George is a tradie and they have renovated two homes, but how will they handle the added pressure of being on The Block?
Sarah, 27 Teacher
Sarah, a high school teacher, hopes the experience on The Block could lead her to a different career direction.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love my job, but I am not the same person when I’m teaching. It’s just not the dream,” she says.
For a fun-loving person, Sarah admits she can be quite particular and fastidious. In the kitchen her plates are perfectly aligned, the jars are labelled, and all the glasses are spaced out equally, facing just the right way.
George, 33 Electrician
George has worked as an electrician in Sydney for 13 years. But even with that experience, he admits a lot of the tradies’ tools on The Block will be quite foreign to him.
On and off the worksite George is a kid at heart and a big teddy bear. George hasn’t chosen to collect things like stamps or fine wines throughout his life, opting instead for collecting rare Pokémon cards and owning a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Daniel and Jade, South Australia
• Crippling drought has saddled them with a debt nearing $1 million.
• Jade works as a hairdresser two days a week in the South Australian town of Port Pirie.
• Both have very supportive parents who’ll be looking after the kids back home.
• They isolated on their own for 14 days without the kids when The Block was shut down.
• They have come close to being on the show before.
• Daniel’s passion is farming but he is a qualified carpenter.
The Farmers from 250 kilometres north of Adelaide have made four attempts to get on The Block. Now that they’ve made it, they are ready to change the future for their family of three young kids.
Daniel completed his carpentry trade in his late teens and Jade is a highly visual person who plans on making the executive decisions when it comes to design.
Daniel and Jade are the parents of Lincoln, 9, Hayden, 7, and Isla, 6. The main reason Daniel and Jade applied for The Block is Isla. She is one of only eight children in the world identified with a rare chromosome disorder that affects her speech and physical ability.
This couple, who own two farms in rural South Australia, have endured great hardship over the years. Their farms have been affected by drought since 2016, and just when they thought things couldn’t get any harder, last Christmas one farm was destroyed by a bushfire.
“We have fared a lot better than some others,” Daniel says, “although our margins are way down from where they should be to successfully run a good business. We are very close to a million dollars in debt.”
Daniel and Jade hope The Block will turn their lives around, get them back on their feet, and maybe free up some of their time back in South Australia.
Daniel, 35 Farmer/Carpenter
Being a farmer is everything to this true-blue Aussie man on the land who feels more at home on a tractor or working with animals than choosing cushions.
He has been gearing up for The Block for a long time, not only by watching the show but by spending over 16 years in the building trade as a carpenter.
Daniel grew up on a farm before spending much of his teen years working on properties across the Outback. He thinks this attitude and straight shooting will help him and wife Jade get on with it and get the job done.
Jade, 34 Hairdresser
Jade works as a hairdresser part-time during the week when she isn’t looking after their three kids.
Going into The Block, Jade hasn’t done too much research. After years of being a fan she knows the show can change at the drop of a hat.
“I figure it’s like when you have an idea in your head about what dress you want to buy for a wedding, or what pair of shoes you want. You go into that with preconceived images – and it never turns out.”
Luke and Jasmin, Western Australia
• Luke has also been a DJ on the side.
• They met at a bar in Perth while both were studying and Jasmin made the initial approach.
• In a past life Luke studied hospitality management at TAFE.
• Luke specialises in laying timber flooring and decking with his carpentry business.
• Jasmin comes to The Block with a secret styling weapon: an app that lets her lay images of furnishings together to see what the finished product should look like.
The Perth couple met 17 years ago in a local pub on a student night and are currently renovating their own home as they raise their two kids, Lola, 4, and one-year-old Sonny.
“We moved into our house, I fell pregnant straight away, and then we renovated our big bathroom while I was in the early days of being pregnant with our second child,” Jasmin says.
“It’s pretty much been baby, renovations, baby, toddler, and renovations.”
Luke, 35 Carpenter
Luke owns a carpentry business that he started nine years ago. In his job he does a lot of renovations and timber flooring, while he works full-time as a carpenter, Luke’s CV also includes his other successful career – male modelling.
“I used to do a lot of fashion stuff when I was younger,” says Luke, who was signed to the premium agency Chadwick Models for several years. “But now it’s mainly commercial. I’ve done shoots in Bali and across Australia, but it’s not my bread and butter.”
Jasmin, 36 Teacher
Jasmin is a part-time kindergarten teacher who runs a tight ship in the classroom and has no qualms about doing that on The Block too. Luke describes Jasmine as a hard-working, beautiful person and mother, saying he and the family would be lost without her.
Jimmy and Tam, Queensland
• Jimmy was a cross-fit champion for several years.
• Jimmy and Tam met while he was her trainer.
• They got married at the local bowls club in Brisbane where Tam works and grew up.
• Her mother is a champion lawn bowls player there.
• During The Block’s production break they arrived back in Brisbane moments before the border closed.
• Jimmy is a supporter of the mental health organisation TradeMutt, which is helping to make the mental health of tradies a priority.
After finding love at the gym this couple are now renting in Brisbane with their four-year-old daughter, Frankie.
They work around the clock to make ends meet, with Jimmy doing early mornings on the job site and Tam working late nights in the bar.
“We are doing this for Frankie. We want to try and win to set our family up,” Jimmy says.
If they do win big on The Block the couple plan to use the money to enter the property market.
They are also renovating a caravan at home, and Jimmy once used his skills to turn a 1926 Chevrolet into a beer lovers’ idea of perfection.
“It was like an old bread truck and I built a bar inside it with real bar taps. We used to take it to weddings and other events,” he says.
Jimmy, 33 Plumber
Jimmy is an experienced plumber. After working his way up in the trade, he now manages large plumbing jobs.
Jimmy has had some experience with full scale renovation. “A mate owned a gym and we renovated that together,” he says. “I also helped with our neighbour’s bathroom, so I think I’ve got a fair idea about what I’m getting into.”
Tam, 31, Bar Manager
Tam is the bar manager at her local bowls club and claims to pour the best beer in all of Brisbane. She grew up there as her mum was a star player, and it was her first place of employment. She even got married to Jimmy at the venue.