SPOILER ALERT: The Apartment: Design Your Destiny - Episode 6

The Challenge:
This week’s challenge is to create the heart of the home: a fantastic family room. In order to throw the teams out of their comfort zones, they are restricted with their color choices for their sixth challenge. With each team being assigned a specific color palette, they have to adapt swiftly and design a family room that is able to cater to the needs of three generations.  

Another spanner is tossed into the works as unexpected guests at the mall greet the teams. Kids twelve years of age and under accompany the teams on their shopping trip, posing as their clients. These kids who are highly opinionated are definitely not the easiest clients to please!

Laurence in that pinstripe suit, surrounded by kids.
Seems like he's living up to that nickname I gave him.
(Hint: it rhymes with Harry Loppins)

Anyone who has worked in front of the camera will tell you that working with kids and animals can be incredibly frustrating and challenging. Add to that the time crunch, budget constraints, assigned color choices, and not one but TWO spaces to design...and our contestants are stuck in possibly one of the toughest weeks this season.

It was nice to see the teams stepping up their game, though! Per and Nara surprised me with their sleek and sophisticated room. I thought the pieces that they put up on the wall (the tree painting and the string art) were incredible, and it's a testament to how far they've come in terms of their skills that they did those themselves.

Meanwhile, Sonya and Yvette turned out a really pleasant room. I like that this week they decided to be subtle without being boring. I think they're injecting a bit of soul in there, to Laurence's delight, I'm sure. I should say, however, that I really love that carpet and I don't think it's ugly at all! I don't get what all the fuss was about.

Now, the deserving winners of this week were none other than...

Yay, Deankie and Tiara! The moment I saw that stunning wall coming together, I knew they'd win. Their room was utter perfection! The wall, the bookshelf, the red chair...these two are great at curating items for their room, and they're talented at making things themselves. They've definitely been proving themselves worthy competitors these past few weeks.

In the bottom two again were the lovebirds:

Why are the judges so insistent on separating these love birds?? I think the bottom two were picked just for the drama :(

To be fair, I really think the boys didn't do too bad. I liked that Hogwarts feel in their family room, and although I get that it's not family-friendly for most of us, I bet the Addams family would feel right at home in there. And that treehouse? I mean, really...SO clever!

But Ines and Jennifer have had a couple of rough weeks with their execution not meeting their expectations. There was the collapsing structure in their garden last week, and the botched paint job this week (points for trying something new with that drip effect, though!). So it's no surprise that...

Ines and Jennifer are out.

These beauty queens were always really sweet and charming in real life and on TV, so I was disappointed to see them go :( At the very least, they've proven that stunning beauty and impressive brains aren't mutually exclusive. Let's hope that beauty queen bimbo stereotype goes away for good!

So what are we in for next week?



These contestants do more cardio in a day than most of us do in a month, thanks to all that frantic running! There seems to be some kind of surprise twist next week and I can't even begin to guess what it could be. Excited yet? Me too!

Oh, by the way, the Dulux Virtual Decoration Tool has just gone live this past Sunday! You can walk through each of the apartments and be inspired by the design choices. Best of all, you can design your own rooms and be in the running to win weekly prizes! So if you think you've got the design skills, now's the time to prove it ;) Make sure to check the tutorial for tips and tricks!