Week 14

            Win A Home – Post Episode Fourteen

It’s a bittersweet realisation that the competition will soon come to an end for our design duos. But, before the big winners are named, there’s one more challenge to complete – the lounge.

This will also be the last of the design duos’ cash budgets. After winning the garden challenge, Team Habitat received a R10,000 bonus to add to their budget, giving them R53,000 budget for their final room. Team VISI has R40,000 remaining to spend on this final space, while Team House and Leisure has only R36,500 left with which they can work.

It seems all the design duos are going to inject as much creativity as possible into these final spaces and they embark on exciting creative collaborations. For Team Habitat, the choice is easy in working with Stephen Pikus from Stephen Pikus Design. He’s the creator of their kitchen chandelier and will be creating custom lighting for their lounge from upcycled truck air filters. They also collaborate with Sally Chapman of Chapman collection, who creates a custom wallpaper for the corridor adjacent to the lounge.

By the halfway mark, Team Habitat have constructed an architectural partition between the kitchen and lounge which will help define both areas. Their design will require a fine balance and attention to detail that will make or break their chances of winning the challenge. Team VISI, however, have a very empty and blank lounge at the halfway point. Although all their furniture pieces are on site, their biggest challenge is the paint technique, which takes days to complete. The question is whether or not they’ll be ready in time with such a complicated element of their design still to finish. As for Team House and Leisure, they had finally made peace with the difficulties of the last few challenges and it’s fun, fun, fun for the final room. They are playing with colour and unconventional pendant light pieces from 20eight and they managed to call in a few favours to help keep their budget in check.

With all three design duos really pushing the envelope with the lounge, will they be feeling relaxed or really stressed out when the judges come to offer their critique?