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House Rules: High Stakes: meet the contestants

8 teams compete in Seven's opening reno challenge.

House Rules returns to Seven on Monday with 8 teams competing in an opening challenge to renovate a 1970s penthouse at the Focus tower on the Gold Coast.

Six teams will then proceed to renovate each others’ homes around Australia.

Tamara & Rhys
Queensland
Lawyer and Fitness Pro

Brisbane couple Tamara, 28, and Rhys, 29, prove opposites do attract.

“We are very much opposites,” Tamara explains. “If I don’t like people I’m not going to spare your feelings over something, I’ll just tell it how it is. Whereas, Rhys will just be nice even if he thinks you’re not a nice person.”

The half fiery, half chilled couple met at the gym where they both trained. “After training at the same gym for a year, a mutual friend pointed Rhys out to me,” says Tamara. “Even though he’d never spoken to me I followed him on Instagram, and the very next day he started talking to me and the rest is history.”

Tanya & Dave
Western Australia
Married with Kids

Life is bright and breezy for Perth couple, Tanya,38, and Dave,36.

Happily married parents of three children, Luke, 8, Benjamin, 7 and Emily, 4, the photogenic Perth pair recently upsized to a bigger house in the burbs.

“We have the perfect family house now where all the kids have room to grow up in and we can call our forever home,” enthuses Tanya.

However, despite being spacious, their dream two-storey art deco heritage home is stuck in a 1980’s time warp and needs a “complete design overhaul” to welcome it into the 21st century.

“The house is just really worn and needs a lot of TLC. The kitchen is not functional and has a lot of old, tired, dark wood cabinetry and our bathrooms are daggy and dated,” confirms Tanya.

Dave adds: “The reason we entered the competition is basically to upgrade our home for the kids, something we would never be able to do ourselves at this point of our lives.”

Susan & Anthony
Victoria
Married Cheerleaders

Husband and wife cheerleaders Susan and Anthony will be shaking their pompoms and strutting their stuff as they compete this year.

The newly married cheerleaders first met through a mutual friend ten years ago and are hoping their total lack of renovation experience will be made up for with plenty of enthusiasm and energy.

“Nobody shakes pompoms like Anthony can,” cheerleading and dance academy owner, Susan, 31, says.

Recently buying a house in Berwick, Victoria, to call their very first home, Susan and Anthony are hoping their meticulous organisation skills and healthy competitiveness will put them on the path to success.

Laith & George
New South Wales
Best Mates

Laith, 29, and George, 30, still live at home with their parents but agree they should fly the nest.

“We both still live at home, me with my parents and George with his parents,” confirms Laith. “I think you could say we are like brothers from different mothers, but its time to move out.”

Despite having no renovating experience, Laith is hoping his best mate George, who is a qualified builder and owner of a construction company, is going to be his guru.

“We’ve definitely got what it takes to win, me being a builder for years and Laith… Laith is Laith,” jokes George.

Kayne & Aimee
Victoria
Plumber Couple

Positive plumbers Kayne, 37, and Aimee, 26, are the first tradie couple in House Rules history.

“I’m pretty honoured to be the first lady tradie on the show,” Aimee adds. “I want to show everyone that we can give it a crack just as much as the fellas.”

Both plumbers by trade this sunny couple from Victoria met on a job site in Sydney in 2015 and plan to win us all over with their hard work ethic and joie de vivre.

“We are an easy going team that loves a laugh and never takes anything too seriously,” says Kayne.

“I can’t see us getting too stressed about a situation, rather we will always find the positive and will work our butts off to make sure we are standing there at the end of the competition.”

Lenore & Bradley
New South Wales
Mother and Son

Bradley, 31, is super close to his mum, Lenore, 55, and feels entering House Rules: High Stakes is his way of giving back.

“Mum and my stepfather Michael have always sacrificed so much for us kids so I’m really happy to be able to do this with her so she and Michael can hopefully get the home they deserve,” says Bradley.

Lenore and Michael have been stuck at their current abode in Greystanes, NSW for years, unable to give it the love it so desperately needs.

A menswear fashion designer, Bradley is hoping his strong design skills and “love for colour and prints,” will help him and Lenore thrive in the competition.

Kimmy & Rhi
Tasmania
Twins

Twins from Tasmania, Kimmy, 31, and Rhi, 31, think their ‘twin-tuition’ will give them the winning edge.

“With my interior design qualification and our twin-tuition we’ve got it in the bag,” reveals Kimmy.

The sisters who live and work in Launceston are virtually impossible to tell apart and are in complete sync with one another.

“We finish each other’s sentences, we know how each other are feeling,” says Kimmy.

“We say the same thing at the same time,” both twins chime in instantaneously.

Living only around the corner from each other the only two real differences between the pair is that Kimmy is single and Rhi has a partner, Sam,30, who she met online and has been seeing for the past two years.

Carly & Andrew
Queensland
Married Straight Shooters

Brisbane dad, Andrew, 46, admits he’ll only be guided by his wife Carly’s opinions whilst renovating.

“I’ll listen to Carly but if outsiders try to give me design advice whilst I’m renovating I’ll be like ‘you’ve got no idea!’”

The straight shooting landscape foreman from Sydney has already renovated with his wife on two previous NSW properties of theirs including one in Marrickville and another in Greenacre, before moving to Queensland.

“We renovated our first apartment in Marrickville which was a 1970s deceased estate,” Andrew explains.

“We dropped the ceiling height with shadow lines all around it, removed a wall between the kitchen and lounge to make it an open plan living area and completed a full bathroom renovation where I installed all the floor and wall tiles.”

Host Jamie Durie
Host Abbey Way
Judge Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen
Judge Kyly Clarke
Designer Saul Myers
Designer Carolyn Burns-McCrave

7pm Monday – Thursday next week on Seven.

19 Responses

  1. Why is there 2 hosts? Is Abbey (never seen or heard of her before) there hosting all the time with Jamie or only like Shelley Craft for walk through s or challenges.
    Forgive my ignorance as I have never watched the show.

    1. At least 5 people besides the Asian couple are not “white”, a few of them are not “slim” and you can tell everyone’s sexuality from a photo can you? What an ignorant comment. Oh and there isn’t a “token Asian couple” each year. That’s a fail on every point you made.

  2. As a family we used to love this show, then it started, “LLB” treats people horrendously and I will not subject my children to his blatant bullying, it really was offensive to watch last year and we didn’t finish the season. We borderline quit the show after those two horrible women from the “bush” property, and well I have never been a fan of Jaimie Drury so, one would think after the flop of MKR someone at CH7 would learn…I think this will flop

  3. I don’t know I could be wrong but to me this reminds me of “The Block”.. Interesting to see if Ch7 make it about the building etc or about Drama…. Like MKR…. Who knows…

  4. Another reality series with no South Australian contestants. I swear they seem to not make the cut on a fair few occasions compared to the other mainland states.

    1. They used to have a couple from each state, you’d think with over a million South Australian’s they could at least find one pair. I think representing different geographical locations, as well as diversity is necessary to appeal to the whole Aussie society.

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