The Block - Industrial Midcentury Style

Well Australia's favourite renovating show, The Block, started again the other night and trended on Twitter immediately! It is one of those addictive television shows due to the ability to not only watch others renovate, but see how they react in a stressful situation (and I'm sure most of us sit there and think we could have done better!).

For the first epidsode, two couples had to decorate a white room in 24 hours including paint, floorcovering, shopping and styling. Both were young couples and both designed a room which had strong midcentury influences and a touch of an industrial or urban look.

The first room, created by 'Brad and Courtney', was a midcentury dining room with light grey walls...

Photos from Ninemsn Homes.

Let's play 'what would you do?'...

The things I liked...

• The wall colour is great and dark floors are stunning!
• That fantastic poster - I love oversized posters, especially with this style of furniture.
• The hide rug is a nice trendy choice that it's a bit different.
• The choice of dining chairs and table - love the table in particular. But how did they afford all these pieces with only $5,000?
• It's also great to see something other than a bedroom in these challenges!

The things I didn't...

• The placement of the armchair doesn't work for me, and it isn't really a dining room piece. Why not a sideboard instead?
• As the judges said, I don't like the idea of putting thumbtacks into such a beautiful expensive poster (but I'm not entirely opposed to it either, maybe if it was sandwiched between glass with gold screws instead?).
• Not enough art! This is a fairly simple room in terms of furniture so I would have included an enormous gallery wall or some other bold art choices (maybe wallpaper?).

All in all though, I think this couple have still got a great style and could have created something fantastic with a bit more time!

Now, the next room was a bedroom by 'Dani and Dan' which also had a decided midcentury and urban influence, with...light grey walls again!

Photos from Ninemsn Homes.

The things I liked...

• Although it looks so similar to the other room I still love the choice of wall colour and flooring. This couple had a nicer fireplace to work with too!
• The colours! This couple has a great eye for colours and have pulled together an eclectic mix of different colours very successfully.
• The art is fantastic and really makes the room.

The things I didn't...

• This is being picky considering the time they had - but I would have liked to see a different piece of art, rather than two pieces by the same artist. That's a more personal thing though!
• I am not a fan of curtains that don't hang to the floor, and also not too keen on hanging curtain rods on the window frame. Imagine how tall those ceilings would feel with floor to ceiling curtains!
• The scale of the armchair. As much as I love wishbone chairs I think that corner needs something more substantial. An egg chair would have been amazing, but I'm sure their budget wouldn't have allowed for that!

All up, I do like both rooms and think it's a shame both couples aren't going through. I wonder if they are making couples with similar design styles compete against each other, so there's more variety in the finished homes?

What do you think of the rooms above? Would you do anything differently?

By the way, don't forget to enter our gorgeous giveaway of a cushion from Aqua Door Designs!