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Carly & Leighton win House Rules

South Australian couple win the first season of Seven renovation series with their $460,000 mortgage paid off.

imagehroSouth Australian couple Carly Schulz and Leighton Brow have won the first season of Seven’s House Rules following a public vote by viewers.

After seven weeks of renovations they defeated NSW couple Michelle Steve Ball to win the value of their mortgage paid off: $460,000.

That puts it well in front of the $250,000 prize that has been standard across many recent contest finales.

“Are you sure?” Carly asked when told they had won. “We are the luckiest people in all of Australia.”

“We just want to thank Australia. I want to thank this beautiful girl here, I couldn’t have done it without her. We want to thank all of the contestants,” said Leighton.

The live to air finale, which involved broadcasts from three states, follows the success of Seven’s series, which overcame low ratings in its first week.

Seven’s bold format benefited from less product placement and off-site challenges than Nine’s reigning series The Block, and with entire homes revealed in a week.

The show has been renewed for a second season and is calling for new contestants.

13 Responses

  1. I didn’t see the point of the last Reno room. The voting started before the rooms were revealed obviously based on previous renos. The 2 judges were perhaps redundant by then. Still I love watching any reno show but HR is my fave now.

  2. Watched the show last night, and thought this was a set up.
    The room that Steve and Michelle did for Carly and Leighton had far less time for viewers to vote for ( once it was finished) than the winners room. Voting was announced closed in the same segment showing the room Steve and Michelle did.

  3. As much as I almost detest network 7 for their disrespect and treatment of their viewers, I must congratulate them on the success of HR, because unless I am mistaken, I query the comments referring to 7 turning it around after the slow rating start, because hadn’t the die already been cast by the time we got to see it?

    So I do congratulate the production team for their professional foresight, it is a shame that they came close to ruining the live final presentation, as they flogged the premium phone charged calls to the extreme, then inflicted numerous add breaks on us as they supposedly counted those votes, and it was only the popularity of HR and the winners Carly and Leighton that won me over last night.

    All in all I think all the other contestants came in with a pretty decent second prize as well, and that should ensure there will be no shortage of contenders for the next HR reality show, and hope with the exception of the Grand Finals night, there is no tweaking for tweakings sake next time.

  4. The best performers won, so it was fair result, but I thought Michelle and Steve’s sobfest backstory would put them over the line to victory. I was very pleased to see Carly and Leighton win, many congratulations to them. Congrats to Seven as well, on the birth of a new reality franchise, House Rules.

    I hope like hell they don’t tinker with it too much for the next series as the format is pretty much ideal for a home renovation show. I really, really hope they don’t go down the route of the Block by purposely casting obnoxious, adversarial contestants. Reality casting is where Seven blitzes the other networks, and the casting on HR was fantastic, though I never warmed to Michelle, all the others were fantastic, lovely people.

  5. House Rules Finale Drinking Game: anytime someone says “Life Changing” take a drink.

    I’ll be drunk til next season’s premiere.

  6. Well done Carly & Leighton! They were very consistent across the competition. I liked the live finale and enjoyed the show very much. Can’t wait for the next series.

  7. As much as I loved Michelle and Steve, I think it’d be hard to argue that the best team didn’t win. That said, from what I saw, Michelle and Steve were very classy in defeat. Congrats to Seven on turning a potential disaster into a resounding success.

  8. Probably the most consistent couple in the competition, though I thought Michelle and Steve would win for their story.

    Glad though it came down to a public vote and not one of the final week challenges, which seemed a bit of an anti climax compared to the main competition.

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