Mitre 10 Dream Home

Mitre 10 Dream Home
Genre	Reality Show
Created by	Ninox Films (except 2007 series by TVNZ)
Presented by	Jayne Kiely
Country of origin	New Zealand
Language(s)	New Zealand English
No. of seasons	10
No. of episodes	90 (at end of season 9)
Production
Location(s)	Different location each season
Running time	60 Minutes (including commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel	TVNZ
Picture format	576i 16:9
First shown in	1999
External links
Website

Mitre 10 Dream Home is a reality television series that screen on TV2 in New Zealand, presented by Jayne Kiely. Two couples are challenged to turn a dilapidated house into their Dream Home. Each week the two teams are to renovate a room or area of the house in just one weekend. Viewers vote for the room they like best with the votes from the viewers and judges help determine which team will win the competition. The winning team take will win the Dream Home they create and the second team will have the option to purchase their Dream Home at a public auction.

Copyright dispute

The 'Dream Home' concept enjoyed success in New Zealand over a period of ten years and inspired a similar venture in Australia. In 2003 the show's creators Ninox Television Ltd and the Australian production company Nine Films & Television Pty Ltd entered into an arrangement. Consequently Australia's Nine Network screened two series of the very successful show called 'the Block' though the production company failed to pay Ninox any licence fees. In 2005 Ninox Television Ltd launched legal action, alleging that the latter's TV series infringed copyright. The case progressed to the Federal Court of Australia. The court eventually ruled against Ninox, concluding that though the shows were very similar in character, "simply by reason of the fact that there are large elements of unscripted dialogue and interaction within the overall framework of the programs, there cannot be any substantial reproduction."^[1]

The teams

There are two teams competing to build their Dream Home, these teams are known as the Blue Team and the Yellow Team. The team consists of the chosen couples to compete in the show, couples with young children are always chosen, couples that do not already own their own home. Each team includes their own builder to assist with the construction of the home and an architect and designer who not only create the final plans for the home but helps with the building process. Each team also has a budget advisor known as the teams Red Coat (as this person always wears a red coat) and will advise the team on their spending during the project and make suggestions with any budget related matters.

Team Selection

Finalist teams are chosen and the finalist teams have the task of designing their Dream Home, the design must meet certain criteria such as being Environmentally Friendly, certain size and the judges are looking for any unique design aspects that have not been seen elsewhere such as in a magazine. The finalists present their design concept to the judges as a portfolio and a model and given their reasons why they should compete to win their Dream Home. The potential teams are told whether they will become the blue or yellow team if chosen to compete in the competition. The best possible blue team and best possible yellow team chosen by the judges will become the teams to compete to build their Dream Home.

The Project

After the teams are chosen in the second show the teams will meet with the builders, designers and architects to discuss the designs for their Dream Home. The house will be designed based on the design created by the couple prior to selection but often the architects may find the design is simply not feasible and redesign the house from scratch. The teams will also visit Mitre 10 and Farmers (the major sponsors of the show) to choose possible items for the house as well as building materials.

Once all the design work is complete the original home is prepared to be remodelled into a Dream Home, the teams will first demolish any parts of the original home. In the earlier series this was simply gutting out the inside of the existing home but later seasons actually had the teams demolishing everything except a couple of original walls and the floor. Rules were changed from the 2006 series onwards requiring at least 30% of the original wall stud to be kept. Once the home is demolished builders will then build the shell of the house putting up any frame work and usually the roof at this point, the teams do not play a part in this part of the construction and very little of this construction is actually shown on television.

Each week the teams have the project of constructing a room in the house in just one weekend and the final weeks the exterior of the house is clad and painted and the gardens are landscaped. While there is some variance between each series the following rooms are constructed each week.

• Week 1: Teams are chosen and house is designed by potential teams.
• Week 2: Master Bedroom
• Week 3: Bathroom (and ensuites if any)
• Week 4: Lounge/Living and Dining Area
• Week 5: Children's bedrooms (usually 2 rooms)
• Week 6: Hall way and laundry
• Week 7: Kitchen
• Week 8: Exterior of house clad and painted
• Week 9: Landscaping of gardens as well as building decks and garage
• Week 10: Final show no actual building takes place, winner announced and second house auctioned.

While much of the construction work is done by the team members, however some tasks are done exclusively by qualified tradesmen for both teams. These are tasks that could not easily be done by the team members, however the costs of this must be met from the Team's Cash Budget. These jobs include carpet laying, plumbing, electrical work, as well as the construction of the roof on the house and pavement driveway and garage.

Competition rules

The competition has some rules that the teams must adhere to during the construction of their Dream Home.

• While teams are allowed to call in extras to assists with the building of the house such as friends or family members the extras must not be qualified builders or tradesmen, that is unless they pay the builder or tradesman out of the team's budget. The exception to this rule is the team can call in a tradesman to carry out a task where that tradesman doesn't do the particular job by trade, for example the team can call in a plumber to help with painting but not plumbing.
• The teams have a certain budget to adhere to each week the teams budget advisors will assist with the budget aspects. The advisor will keep track of spending and report if the team underspent or overspent on their budget. If the budget exceeds the recommended amount the team will have less to spend in later shows.
• The construction of the room is done under a certain time limit usually the team will have from 8am on a Saturday morning until 5pm on Sunday afternoon. Often the teams will work into the early hours of Sunday morning and then be back on site to continue work after sunrise. The teams must down tools and vacate the house once the time limit has been reached regardless if the weekends project is complete. The final minutes are often spent tidying any work for the final presentation.
• The house must adhere to certain safety aspects such as rails on the staircases. If these aspects are not included even if the team did not have time to add such features then a penalty will be imposed. This is usually a cash fine out of the team's budget.

The Winner

Each week the judges will view the rooms constructed and judge the standard of the workmanship, design aspects, whether the project was actually completed and look for any possible flaws. The three judges will then decide which room constructed this week deserves to win this will carry a small weighting in determining the final winner. Viewers of the show also can vote for the room they liked the best by calling the shows 0900 number or by placing a vote by text message.

The final show is a live show and viewers are still able to place their votes for the overall project prior to the winner being announced. Once a winner has been announced this team will win the Dream Home they constructed including all the furnishings in the home. The second place team wins all the furnishings in the home and also money for a deposit to enable them to purchase the house at the auction, should they hold the top bid. The auction takes place live on the air with bidding open to any members of the public attending auction. In the shows history the second place teams have so far always purchased the home however the 2007 series the winners did not walk away with the home on the show due to the auction closing below reserve but managed to settle outside the show.

Variance between series

Series 1 (1999):
The first series took place during the spring of 1999 in Blenheim in the South Island. The potential teams originally were chosen by building a mailbox with the best two mailboxes being the couples that would compete in the competition. The design of the houses were done solely by the architects but with input from the competing couples, the couples were shown the houses before they were placed on site and were given the opportunity to locate where on the section the house would be located. The houses were 1930's style bungalow houses, the interior was gutted out and exterior cladding removed but the teams built their Dream Home in the shell of the original home maintaining much of its original look, even the timber windows were kept as opposed to replacing them with modern aluminium window joinery. The house were not viewed by judges instead the winner was solely determined by viewer votes. Viewers could only vote by calling the 0900 number as text messaging was not used by many New Zealander's at the time.

Series 2 (2000):
The second series took place late in 2000 in the North Island town of Hastings with the final auction taking place in December 2000. There was very little difference between the first and second series apart from now the teams were required to increase the floorspace of the house by 25%. This time the house was a 1960's style State House.

Series 3 (2001):
This series took place late in 2001 in the South Island town of Timaru. Once again there was very little difference between the earlier seasons. The houses were once again 1930's style bungalows.

Series 4 (2002):
In this series the way that the teams were chosen were changed. Potential teams were now required to design the house before selection much as the series operates today. The houses were now located on site before the series began, the original houses were 1940's or 1950's style State Houses. This is the first season where the final product resembled a house that looked nothing like its original design with much of the original house being demolished. Teams were now required to increase the floor space of the house by 50%. Wanganui was the location for this series.

Series 5 (2003):
The fifth series took place at the end of 2003 in Dunedin and was the last series to take place at the end of the year. The original houses were once again 1950's State Houses but the houses this time were completely demolished down to just the original floor boards and a single wall but some materials from the original houses were reused in the new house. This was the first season where the Couples and their Designers were given the opportunity to see the room the other team had completed and give their view, usually picking any faults out to the shows viewers.

Series 6 (2005):
The series now moved to screening at the start of the year from February 2005 until April 2005, as a result no series was screened in 2004 but for the teams much of the competition actually took place late in 2004. This series was done in Upper Hutt. The houses now had their floor space increased between 100% and 200% creating much larger houses, the original houses were 1950's State Houses painted by the show producers in blue and yellow before the series began.

Series 7 (2006):
Series 7 took place early in 2006 in Whangarei. The amount of floor space the teams had to increase the size of the property was reduced and a requirement put in place that the teams had to keep at least 30% of the original wall structure. The final result still produced a house that looked nothing like the original.

Series 8 (2007):
The series took place in Whakatane, while past series had been produced by Ninox Films this was the first season were the series was produced by TVNZ instead, the show still remained hosted by Jayne Kiely and included the same judges. The show became much more like a reality TV show now with a Shed Cam where members of the team could sit in front of the camera and express anything they needed to say to the viewers. Also the show became more competitive than it had been in the past showing rivalry between the two teams, where in the past the two teams had treated each other as their future neighbours and were much more friendly. A rising property market in every region since the show began has made purchasing the Dream Home for the team who come second much harder, in this series both teams faced the reality that if they didn't win their Dream Home the couple would not be able to afford to purchase the property at auction. The auction for the second place teams Dream Home did not meet reserve and viewers were left uncertain of whether the family would be able to purchase the home but it was revealed the following day the family managed to negotiate to purchase the property. At the time the winner was announced transmission of the show was actually cut at the crucial moment however it was rescreened minutes later.

Series 9 (2008):
The Taranaki town of Hawera was chosen as the setting for this Series. The show was branded as Mitre 10 Dream Home Ultimate with bigger houses on a bigger section and bigger prizes to be won. The teams also won prizes for winning the room each week. The series is once again produced by Ninox Films. The winner this year was the Yellow team. The Blue team successfully won their auction with no other bidders trying to take them on.

Series 10 (2009):
Greymouth on the West Coast of the South Island was chosen as the setting for this Series of Dream Home. The expectations for the houses in this Series were scaled back to reflect tougher economic time as a result of the Recession. The houses had to "reflect their original character" and the budget was reduced. However, there was still an expectation of a 100% increase in the floorspace of the houses. Four couples were shortlisted for the show, competing in pairs for each of the two houses. Rather unusually, neither of the two couples picked to compete for the Blue House were chosen to renovate that house. Rather one of the couples originally picked to compete for the Yellow house was instead chosen to renovate the Blue House and will compete as the "Blue Team". Another change is the way the judges come to their decision as to who is the winner each week, each of the three judges rate each team a score out of ten this score is put together and the team with the highest score wins for the week. This actually makes it possible for the judges decision to be a tie and this was the result on the first week, in this case both teams won a prize for winning the room for that week. The Yellow Team won this Series, and the Blue Team were successful in buying their house at the auction.

Series 11 (2010):
The show did not screen in 2010 instead TV2 decided to screen Supernanny.

References

1. ^ Block is no Dream Home - copyright and television program formats Accessed 23-9-2010

External links

• Mitre 10 Dream Home Website
• TV2 Information of Mitre 10 Dream Home
• TVNZ OnDemand View current series online