Canberra(ish) couple star in House Rules
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Gundaroo couple Katie and Alex Middlemiss are set to make their national television debut on Sunday night, as the New South Wales team in this season of renovation reality show House Rules.
Claiming New Zealand successes as our own has become something of a national pastime for Australia, and so we’re borrowing the tradition and claiming Gundaroo’s latest celebrity couple for Canberra.
Katie and Alex Middlemiss may live just over the border, but they’ll have the whole of the capital behind them as they represent New South Wales in the latest season of House Rules. The show is hosted by Johanna Griggs and features a judging panel comprised of award-winning designer and author Jamie Durie, international design guru Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, and one of Australia’s foremost style and design experts, Wendy Moore. Designer Carolyn Burns-McCrave will again mentor and help the six state teams as they travel around the country transforming each other’s homes.
It’s been a big six months for Katie and Alex, who left Canberra in 2016 for a rustic off-the-grid lifestyle in Gundaroo. Having both grown up in the country, they immediately fell in love with a little cottage built in the 1800s packed full of charm.
“The eco lifestyle is important to us because it signifies the way we grew up, it’s something we’re really grateful for and can’t wait for our kids to experience as well,” says Katie, a stay-at-home mum to one-year-old daughter Hallie. But the historic house has some challenges.
“Space is one of our biggest issues. We have zero storage.”
Federal Police Officer Alex says “the cottage needs a lot of love, It’s absolutely beautiful but it’s the classic story of we fell in love with it and then reality hit. It’s 70 metres square, it’s tiny—when we bought it you could see the outside from the inside.
Unlike other reality renovation shows which don’t guarantee teams go home with anything to show for their efforts, House Rules contestants are guaranteed a renovated home at the end of the competition. The show means Katie and Alex’s dreams will become reality a whole lot sooner than if they followed a traditional renovation path.
“We’ll never have this opportunity again to put our family so far ahead of where we ever thought we could be,” says Katie.
But that doesn’t mean it’s been an easy ride. The couple has now been in production for around six months, with 16-hour days away from their baby girl the norm.
“On a typical day during a renovation we are up really early for hair and full makeup, there are interviews before we go onsite, we then renovate all day, do more interviews at the end of the day, then more filming, then we film a night scene, then dinner, then we plan for the next day, so sleep is not a priority,” says Alex.
“And there’s lots of slip-ups from us because we just didn’t have the knowledge–it’s not our industry.”
“I thought, watching the show before, that you’d get a lot of help in the background that wouldn’t be seen, but that is certainly not the case. We do everything by ourselves. There’s almost zero guidance,” adds Katie.
The couple’s renovation experience pre-House Rules was limited to what Alex calls “skin deep” renovations which were completed with lots of help and the luxury of time. That’s not the case with the show.
“When you say you’re building in seven days, that’s to execute your build, but your decisions have to happen in the first day or two, so it’s more like five,” says Alex.
“I would like to apologise to all previous contestants on any renovation show, because I was the guy sitting at home going ‘c’mon mate, it’s not that hard’ and then it is! Deadset, you could knock me over with a feather sometimes at how hard it is.”
Together, they think they have what it takes to win. “The competition will very much show I am the brains and you are the brawn,” says Katie.
The couple admit it’s been a crazy ride with many sacrifices—the hardest thing being away from Haillie for such a long period.
“There are ups and downs. Most the time we’ve just been so focussed, but then we get a video or a photo and I know that if I lose my sh*t I’m going to get on a plane and go home, so we just have to stay strong. But we talk to her every single night,” says Katie.
“We have to be pragmatic at times,” adds Alex. “We’ve missed our baby…but we’re making a future for her”.
But on the plus side, they’ve made friendships with the other teams that they’re confident will be lifelong.
“They are so great. Most of us have really young kids, some of our babies are only a month apart so we can relate on a lot of different levels—being away from family, where we’re at in life, where we want to go.”
So are they worried about how editing will see them cast? Both Alex and Katie think we’ll see less drama, and more laughs than in other reality shows.
“This is an adventure for us, so we didn’t want to not enjoy it, so we turned up every day wanting to have fun with the other teams—a little like going to work. So we were like mum and dad a lot of the time, being very diplomatic.”
Tune into see Katie and Alex when House Rules kicks off at 7 pm this Sunday 28 April on Seven.
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