The Block 2026 Contestants Reveal Guest Bedroom in 2026

The Block 2026 Contestants Reveal Guest Bedroom: First Room Week Recap The dust has settled on Phillip Island. Well, mostly. Week two of The Block 2026 just wrapped, and if you blinked during the guest bedroom reveals, you missed the first real pressure test of the season. Five couples.

Five very different takes on a room that usually gets treated like an afterthought. Only one walked away with ten grand and bragging rights. Let's break down what actually happened when the tools went down and the judges walked in. What Happened During Guest Bedroom Week 2026 Guest bedroom week is deceptive.

On paper, it's the smallest room in the house. it's where the cracks show. This year's houses — four weatherboard cottages and a converted boatshed — all came with the same footprint: roughly 3.2 by 3.8 metres. Tight.

Awkward window placement in two of them. Zero built-in storage. The brief was straightforward: create a welcoming space for guests that feels considered, not cramped. Budget: $22,000 per team.

Timeline: five days. And for the first time in Block history, the judges scored each room out of 30 instead of the usual 10-per-judge breakdown. Shaynna Blaze, Marty Fox, and Darren Palmer each gave a single holistic score. No category splits.

No hiding behind "great styling, poor execution. " The Teams and Their Approaches Sarah & Tom (The Boatshed) went bold. Navy feature wall, custom-built daybed with pull-out trundle, brass sconces, and a vintage Persian rug they sourced from a Geelong auction house for $400. Risky in a room with limited natural light.

Paid off — they scored 27.5. Mia & Jake (Cottage 1) played it safe. White walls, white linen, IKEA hack wardrobe, a single piece of oversized art. Clean.

Competent. Forgettable. 22. Chloe & Dan (Cottage 2) tried to squeeze a desk nook into the corner.

Noble idea — remote work guests, etc. — but the execution ate floor space. The judges called it "a bedroom confused about its identity. " 19.5.

Priya & Arjun (Cottage 3) leaned into texture. Limewash walls, rattan bedhead, linen curtains that actually puddle correctly, a hand-knotted wool throw. No feature wall. No gimmicks.

Just restraint done well. 26. Bec & Lloyd (Cottage 4) — the tradie couple — built a floor-to-ceiling wardrobe system with integrated lighting and a hidden safe. Practical.

Impressive craftsmanship. But the styling felt sterile. 23.5. Why Guest Bedroom Week Matters More Than You Think Most viewers treat week two as filler.

The "easy room" before kitchens and bathrooms eat budgets alive. That's a mistake. Guest bedroom week sets the tone. It's the first time the judges see how each team manages trades, interprets a brief, and handles the inevitable stuff-ups — wrong paint delivery, missing joinery, the plasterer who ghosts on day three.

It's also the first public ranking. Momentum is real on The Block. A win here buys goodwill. A low score plants doubt.

And the money matters. Ten thousand dollars cash — no strings — goes further than people realise. That's a premium appliance package. A stone benchtop upgrade.

Three weeks of labour hire. Sarah & Tom immediately put theirs toward a custom kitchen island. Smart. But there's a deeper reason this room reveals character.

Guest bedrooms are generous spaces. They're not for you. They're for your mother-in-law, your best friend, the cousin flying in for a wedding. How you treat that person when they're not there says everything about how you'll treat the buyer who eventually walks through the front door.

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How the Reveals Actually Went Down Day One: Planning and Panic Monday morning site meetings are chaos. Foreman Keith does his rounds. "Who's ordered what? Who hasn't?

" This year, two teams hadn't locked in paint colours by 9 AM. One team's plasterer called in sick. Another's carpet delivery got delayed until Thursday — day four. Sarah & Tom had their schedule mapped on a whiteboard.

Hour by hour. They'd pre-ordered everything, including the rug. Mia & Jake were still debating wall colour at lunch. Chloe & Dan spent three hours arguing about desk placement.

The teams that win week one? They don't just plan the work. They plan the buffer. Day Two to Four: The Grind This is where TV edits compress 72 hours into four minutes of montage.

But the reality: plaster dust in your lungs. Grout haze on your fingertips. The moment you realise the custom bedhead is 15mm too wide for the wall cavity. Priya & Arjun's limewash took three coats.

Each coat needed four hours dry time. They worked in shifts — one sleeping, one brushing — for 36 hours straight. Bec & Lloyd's wardrobe system required a CNC-cut plywood delivery that arrived warped. They spent Tuesday night hand-planing every panel.

The boatshed team had it worst structurally. Salt-damaged framing meant two extra days of chippy work before they could even hang plaster. Sarah & Tom absorbed the hit because they'd built a two-day buffer. Everyone else?

No buffer. No margin. Reveal Day: The Walk-Through Judges arrive at 10 AM. Teams wait in the driveway.

No phones. No contact. Just nerves and cold coffee. Shaynna moves fast.

She touches everything — bedlinen tension, curtain hem depth, joinery edges. Marty checks lighting temperature at 3 PM and 7 PM. Darren photographs every corner. They confer in whispers.

Scores appear on the iPad. The announcement order is deliberate. Lowest to highest. Chloe & Dan went first.

Their faces said it all. Then Mia & Jake. Bec & Lloyd. Priya & Arjun.

Sarah & Tom last. The $10,000 cheque is novelty-sized. The photo op is awkward. But the real prize?

The Scotty Cam visit next week. First pick of trades. That's the advantage that compounds. Common Mistakes / What Most Teams Got Wrong Treating It Like a Spare Room "Spare room" energy kills guest bedrooms.

Spare rooms collect laundry. Guest bedrooms invite rest. The difference? Thoughtful details.

A carafe and glasses on the bedside. A luggage rack that doesn't look like a hospital fold-up. Blackout curtains that actually black out. A mirror at full length, not just above the dresser.

Three teams missed this entirely. Their rooms felt like display suites — pretty, impersonal, cold. Underestimating Storage Guests bring stuff. Suitcases.

Bags. Coats. Shoes. The boatshed team nailed this: under-bed trundle, built-in drawers, wall hooks, a bench with lift-up seat.

Priya & Arjun added a vintage wardrobe with hangers already inside. The others? A single rail. Maybe a chest of drawers.

One team forgot hangers entirely. Darren noticed. Lighting as an Afterthought One central pendant does not a guest room make.