A text thread between the female contestants from the 2013 season of The Block NZ buzzed hot when the first episodes of The Block: Redemption aired. The common response to contestants going back for another punishing renovation was clear: they must be mad. How could they go back for more – they know better!
Except for one couple on the thread…
“We can say quite confidently that yes we’d go back because I’m confident we won’t be asked back,” says Alice Pearson, with a peal of laughter. “Viewers like the idea of new teams getting a go each year, rather than former winners coming back.”
The Auckland couple would be thrilled rather than terrified at the prospect of working on another house. The pair are well and truly reno junkies – they’ve just ticked off their 11th renovation, 12 if you count the Belmont house they worked on for the show.
“Being on The Block was the hardest thing I’ve ever done and the best thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been through labour, raised toddlers – and it’s still the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she reveals. “One of my pet peeves is people saying it’s not as hard as it looks. Honestly, it’s five times harder than it looks when you throw in the filming and having only five days to deliver a room.”
The couple with their gorgeous kids (from left) Alek, Mika, baby Brooke and Blake. “For now, our kids don’t think we’re odd!”
Despite how all-consuming the experience was, Caleb and Alice would still leap at the chance to do it all over again.
“My mindset is that the best things in life are usually the hardest and anything that comes easy isn’t worth it,” she asserts. “We’re not scared of hard work.”
That’s abundantly clear from what the talented duo have achieved since we saw them on our screens nine years ago: eight renovations, eight house moves, four children, a new business and two major property developments.
“We joke that our life is very much still The Block, living on building sites and lots of late nights, because it’s the only time you can paint with young kids. Kids and paint are like moths to a flame – they’ll find it!”
The juggle at the Pearsons is real, with two under two.
“We’re in the thick of it with four young kids and property development, but this is just a season of life and it’s over so quickly, so I try to find the joy in the little things,” she admits.
Life’s a juggle, but Alice wouldn’t have it any other way.
“We’re lucky we’ve built this business where we get to spend so much quality time with our kids. There’s Alek, who’s eight and definitely a mini-Caleb in all the best ways – sweet, gentle, lovely natured and enthusiastic. Mika is six and she’s a mini-me, for better or worse! She’s the second mum, loves being in charge, is highly opinionated, heaps of energy and such a good little helper. Blake is two and she’s a firecracker, an absolute joy-bringer. And at eight months, we’re still finding out who Brooke is, but so far, she’s super-smiley and really similar to Blake, so I have high hopes that those two will be super- close growing up.”
The Pearson kids are used to waking up in the morning to find Mum’s painted a room or given another room a full makeover, usually to the soundtrack of a true-crime podcast about some gory murder – “It’s my happy place for renovating,” she laughs.
“For now, our kids don’t think we’re odd, but they’ll work out at some stage that their lives are not like most people, with all the painting and projects, and room transformations,” she says with a smile.
“For them, it’s all they’ve ever known. We’ve pretty much renovated through every pregnancy or with a newborn. Our eight-year-old has lived in eight different houses!”
While lots of New Zealanders kicked back, enjoying the opportunity to do nothing in the first lockdown, the Pearsons leapt into action. When news broke that Aotearoa had three days to prepare for lockdown, Alice raced to four different Resene stores to get enough paint to refresh the whole house.
“We also had a significant amount of stuff on hand because Caleb doesn’t throw things out and I’m a little bit of an over-spender. I buy things for a project and then don’t use them, so that allowed us to spend our time in lockdown working on the house! I enjoyed not being able to go out and buy things, but instead having to work with what we had. You get really creative when you’re quite limited, so I enjoyed that.”
Alice puts the finishing touches on their lockdown do-up.
Alice says the $261,000 they won on their season of The Block enabled them to jumpstart their ventures in property and development.
“We’d done three small-scale renovations on a limited budget before the show, doing them up in our weekends and at nights. Winning that money allowed us to step up our plans – we reinvested it into property and did our first mini development: a single-site subdivision,” she explains.
They’ve just stepped it up again, putting their love for building into a new property development company, Waihanga Group. Caleb, along with business partner Logan James, built and sold a seven-home development in West Auckland last year, and now they’re working on nine boutique homes in Auckland’s popular Brown’s Bay. Alice is relishing doing the interior design for each.
“I’ve loved designing it, doing something fun with colour and design, which a lot of new builds don’t always focus on. The location is really cool and we’re building up so they all have water views. People are going to be really happy in these homes,” she says.
As for their own abode, Alice and Caleb are almost ready to find a house to settle down in and call home.
“We’ve done eight moves since being married and I’m sick of moving now,” she says. “Being pregnant with our fourth made me feel like I do want a home next and not another renovation to sell.
“It’s the first time it’s hit me that I’d like something more permanent. Two of our kids have started school and we’ve realised you need commitment to one neighbourhood and being in one house. For us, it will be a real mindshift. We’ve never bought a house to settle down in before.”
Cue plans for renovation number 12…
