Dreams locked up for Christmas

By Mike Dinsdale and Peter de Graaf
The dream of home ownership has moved a step closer for two Whangarei couples taking part in a reality television show where one will win a house.
Brent Old and Kylee Wyatt, Matthew Baker and Alice Montgomery, and an army of friends and family, are doing up two houses in Alcoba St, Kamo, for TV2 programme Mitre 10 Dream Home.
One partnership will ultimately win its house for free - thanks to a combination of public voting and judges' reckoning - while the other will have the chance to buy its house.
The two houses have been renovated inside and the exteriors finished, but secrecy surrounds what they look like indoors.
The houses have been locked up until January when filming will continue and landscaping done.
The show, which is presented by Jayne Kiely, will air on February 6 for 10 weeks with the winners announced on the final, a live-to-air special.
Mitre 10 Dream Home producer Norman Elder said episode one would cover the selection process that got down to our two hopeful couples.
Episodes two through to nine would focus on the work done to get the relocated houses up to scratch.
In the 10th episode the houses would go to auction and the winning couple would keep theirs while the other couple would get the chance to buy theirs.
Mr Elder said in the programme's previous six series, all competitors had ended up owning the houses.
As well as the assistance of family and friends, which is each couple's contribution to the building efforts, they had help from a builder, an architectural graduate and designer.
Mr Elder said bad weather early on had set back the renovation schedule, but the exteriors were completed at the weekend. He said the couples had done a fantastic job on the renovation work.
"The interior is looking really good. They're very imaginative couples," he said.
Every weekend since October the couples had recruited their friends and relatives to help out.
Local building suppliers, subcontractors, tradesmen and the Mitre 10 store were also heavily involved.
Mr Elder said the two couples were chosen for their "durability and degree of interest", and both had risen to the challenge.
The effort needed to get friends and family turning up to help week after week was as tough as the physical work.
"At the end of it is the biggest prize on national TV at the moment, so we make them work for it," Mr Elder said.