Channel Nine
It’s been The Block’s dream team – an interior designer and a project manager. Best friends from Brisbane, Courtney and Sev have established themselves as the team to beat in 2026.
In a perfect match of skills, Sev works as a commercial interior designer in Brisbane, so on The Block she handles the design, shopping and styling. Her best friend Courtney, a construction site manager, runs the building side.
Sev has been an interior designer for 15 years, working across all types of commercial projects, such as food and beverage, as well as hotels, retail and airports. She says her background has been helpful – and not – when it comes to working on The Block.
“I was very familiar with most of the materiality, so knowing the type of finishes that we were going to use was top of mind,” she says. “My intention was always to apply a really calm, neutral, coastal-esque palette, and I think I’ve been very fortunate to work on coastal food and beverage fit-outs. I’ve done a lot of research around what those environments needed, and so for Courtney and I, it was important to understand how we could bring that materiality into what was going to be a residential design.”
“In terms of the interior design skill set, while it had some strengths, it also came with some weaknesses,” she added. “I struggled with The Block programming side of things. It was a very fast-tracked project. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that in being an interior designer for the last 15 years.”
And while their work has occasionally upset the other teams, Sev’s ideas have always impressed us – and the judges.
It’s the difference between an interior-designed space and a pulled-together-on-The-Block space. Here’s why Sev’s designer sense has given the girls six wins and why we love her style.
1. She thinks outside the box
From the moment Sev and Courtney stepped on site at Mt Eliza, they could see the possibilities in House 4 – which the other teams missed. The house had a great floorplan and huge outdoor space, which was a definite plus.
The best friends immediately realised that if they could secure permission to include a roof garden, the house would capture those all-important ocean views – and still have the biggest yard and best floorplan on The Block.
She has also been creative with her choices – approaching local artists to create bespoke pieces such as the wine cellar. And when she didn’t find the perfect light for her kitchen? She designed her own one with Beacon Lighting, who loved it so much that they decided to put it into production.
2. She starts with an idea
Professional designers rarely start with furniture. They start with an idea, and Sev did exactly that from week one, when she designed the winning room with an aesthetic she called “Peninsula modernism”
Later in the season, the judges loved their backyard and pool area even if it was unfinished, because they could see the design Sev had envisaged. And that wine cellar at the rear of the garage
“Everything the girls have done is pure, bespoke luxury,” said Shaynna Blaze, while looking at the custom-made wine cellar the girls installed in the garage.
3. Restraint that reads as luxury
Darren Palmer briefed all the teams in the first week of the 2026 season to think of quiet luxury and layered neutrals instead of bold colour and trend-led decorating. Plenty of teams chased the look of luxury, but Sev knew how (and when) to hold back.
From week one in the guest bedroom, Sev’s personality came through in details rather than in loud statement pieces, especially in the headboard she designed and made herself. For the judges, it was a welcome contrast to rooms that tried too hard or lacked cohesion.
“I tried to get creative with bedheads,” Sev says. “I thought that was a really cool way to show some creativity and have a bit of uniqueness to those spaces.”
“One of my four bedrooms didn’t land very well, but I just stayed true. And I was like, I’m just going to have another crack, ensuring the whole time that they still spoke to each other in a very subtle way.”
Knowing what to leave out is one of the hardest skills for newbie renovators. It’s also one of the things design training emphasises.
4. Designing for the person who’ll use the room
Good designers write a brief around a real occupant, not a trend. In kids’ bedroom week, Sev did just that. The girls notched up their fifth win of the season with a colourful kids’ room and a revised living space that celebrated the view. The judges loved both spaces.
“This is what Courtney and Sev do super well – they innovate with their creative thinking, they think conceptually, they detail at a designer level, and all those things add up to excellence,” says judge Darren Palmer.
Their winning room left no question about who it was made for. Every choice was aimed at a young child, while some other teams (Adam and Jolene; Chantel and Wyatt) ignored the brief and lost out big.
It’s a lesson for everyone: a room that is aimed for the buyer will always feel more convincing than one styled for a photo.
5. Elevated, but still liveable
Designing a rumpus room is easy to get wrong. Push it too far and it feels like a showroom or a cliché; play it too safe and it reads as a dated games room. Sev’s idea of designing built-in joinery to hide the TV was inspired – and even the other teams acknowledged that when they viewed the room the following week.
Courtney and Sev struck the balance with their concept, creating a space that felt both polished and genuinely inviting. It won the week and we can see why.
And the biggest accolade? It came from judge Darren Palmer, also an interior designer. He said their rumpus was his favourite room in The Block‘s history.
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