About Us

Luke and I met at the young ages of 20 and 22, although Cairns is small enough that we knew of each other for a while before we had officially met. Luke said he remembered seeing me in a shopping centre when he was in year 11 and asked someone “who that cute girl was”, little did he know then, that Tess Cattana would end up being his wife some 13 years later. 

When we first started dating, neither of us were looking to be in serious relationships as we had both come out of long term relationships and just wanted to have fun. I remember after our first date I came home to my mum and said “Oh my god, I think I’m going to marry him”. It was definitely love instantaneously. 

After being together for only a year, I was living with him and then we got our dog Tilly (the love of our life). It all happened very quickly but it felt right. I was hairdressing at the time and Luke was a chippy. He was living in a beautiful old Queenslander that he and his brother owned together and had been renovating. This was his second home, as his other one he had with his siblings was being rented out. It was pretty evident that he was determined, hard-working and set himself big goals that we wanted to achieve. To me, that was something I admired so much in him but I was wired slightly differently. I wanted to travel and experience life in a different way. We had to try and find that happy medium where we would both compromise but encourage each other to reach our goals. We were constantly told “you can’t have everything”, but we disagreed. In moderation, you can. 

In 2015, we bought our first home together – although we were advised by some that it wasn’t a great idea. It was an old Queenslander that was very run down, on a busy street in a “not so great” neighbourhood, but it was all we could afford at the time. I remember Luke showing it to me with so much excitement and a huge smile on his face. The place wasn’t in great shape and the thought of even walking in the house without shoes on made me feel sick. He saw the potential in the home, the money we could make and the fact that we could afford it and also travel at the same time. So, against advice, we went for it. We bought the home and started our enormous renovation journey. 

While renovating the house at night and on weekends, Luke was working away in Townsville which is a 4 hour drive. He would be gone from Monday – Friday, get home late on a Friday night and start working on the house straight away, I would work on a weekend as hairdressers do and then Sunday would be here before we knew it and he would be back off to Townsville. He was doing this, all while still finishing off the house he owned with his brother. This went on for about a year, and it was exhausting but it definitely cemented the foundations of our relationship. As the years passed, we slowly chipped away at the house and explored the world. America, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam – we ticked a few off the list! 

Over the years, I would coax Luke into applying for The Block with me. I would always say “C’mon, we have to give it a crack – what’s the worst that can happen? We just won’t get on and life will continue as normal.” We would sit on our couch like the rest of Australia and judge the contestants and talk about how much better we could do it and then we would watch the auction and just be in complete shock about the money that they could make. It was a dream, but only a dream. Normal people like us would never get on The Block. Surely? To me, it was the only way we would be able to potentially make good money.

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In 2017, Luke proposed to me. It was the most beautiful, romantic day of our lives. My family used to be Cane-farmers in Cairns and today in place of their cane farm, is the gorgeous “Cattana Wetlands”. There is a boardwalk named after my late grandfather, and it was along that boardwalk under a beautiful paperbark tree, Luke asked me to be his wife. Our lives were only just beginning. 

Two months before our wedding in 2018, we applied for The Block, yet again. I didn’t put as much effort into our video as I usually would have. It was just us, in front of the camera telling them why we would be a fabulous fit for the TV show. I sent off the application and forgot we even did it. We had a beautiful wedding in Port Douglas surrounded by our loved ones and then went off to Bali and had an incredible 10 days with friends. We came home from our honeymoon and I had been back at work for no longer than a month or so and then my phone rang as I was sitting at the desk. 

“Hey Tess, it's Lucky here from Lucky Break Creative” – my heart stopped. Long story short, we flew ourselves to Brisbane for an interview. We knew that Lucky had to meet us for us to have a real shot at this. After our interview in Brisbane and then the second round of interviews in Melbourne, we thought that that’s as far as our Block experience was going to go and what an experience it was! Then, in January 2019, my phone rang while we were at the grocery store. Lucky wanted to have a quick chat with us on Skype. It was that second that I knew we had it. For some reason, in my heart, I knew that we had gotten on The Block. We scheduled in our meeting, and in our living room, our lives changed forever. 

Then you saw it – our Block journey. We went on the show, it wasn’t bloody easy (we will never judge a reality tv show again) and we won. There is obviously A LOT more to it and it wasn’t as simple or as straightforward as that, but I’m not writing a novel.

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When we finished filming The Block, we went home and went back to our normal lives before it aired. We didn’t have much money as being away for so long and not working and still paying our mortgage took a huge hit to the account. We had to sell our house to get by which was really emotional. It was always the plan to sell it once it was finished but it was our first home together. We loved it. Luckily, we made money on our home and our hard work, planning and vision had become reality. We made a good investment and it paid off. We didn’t go overboard on the renovations, we kept it within our budget and we made it feel like home so a family would fall in love with it.

Luke and I have always believed in “houses don’t sell, homes do”. We made our house a home and we made our block house a home, we created an emotional pull and we got the emotional buyer. Winning the biggest block in history that tested human endurance, is the accomplishment of a lifetime. It probably took about 6 months for it to sink in. Sitting on that couch and watching the paddles go up for our house we had put our blood, sweat and tears into was the most intense moment of our lives. We knew our house was going to do well, and we backed ourselves for the win but we couldn’t comprehend how much it was going to change our lives.

Since The Block, we came back to Cairns and we were ready to travel Europe, start our build and start our business. We had just started to discover new passions and goals. Interior styling and renovating is a big one, although I suppose it’s always been there. Being a hairdresser for almost 10 years, I think that creativity has been waiting  to come out. I have also found a new love for writing – whether it be just for me or for blogs, I really enjoy expressing myself through words. We also encourage young couples to get into the housing market as young as possible. We are passionate about people knowing exactly what they are investing their hard-earned money into when purchasing a home which has steered us into the building inspection industry.

We pride ourselves in being honest, relatable and real. We show the good, the bad, the ugly and the reality of “reality tv contestants''. 2020 was going to be another huge year for us and we were so excited. We are currently living in my grandmother's place, caretaking 2 acres for the family. The acre we are buying is currently owned by my grandparents and has always been a dream of ours to be able to afford and build our dream home on it. This is something we will always be grateful to The Block for – for giving us the chance of a lifetime. The memories I have of my grandparents are priceless and I want our children to be able to create new memories here. Then of course, Covid hit and like it has for everyone, plans changed. Our travel plans are on hold indefinitely, work took a hit and we were very quiet for months, we experienced loss, we experienced hardship, our build was put on the back-burner and things were looking a little negative for the year that was supposed to be even better than the last. 

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Then July 2020, a silver lining appeared, well a faint line on a pregnancy test is more like it. Expecting our first baby has completely changed our outlook on life, our future plans and the direction we are going in.

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Our business is busier than ever, Luke finally got that new car he had always dreamed of (thank god because the old girl was embarrassing to drive around, especially when it would break down on the side of the road), the design phase of our build is almost complete and we are going to have a beautiful baby. This is normal for us, it’s all or nothing. We don’t “half-arse” do things. We did The Block, now we are going to somehow manage a business, build and a baby. Heck. We can’t wait to share our journey with you and take you along for the ride.