JESS AND NORM’S BABY SURPRISE

It’s a tough week for Jess and Norm as they attempt to take on the landscape king Dave to win their first room and the Domain cover. But they have a very good reason to put everything they have behind this challenge – Jess wants them to be able to afford a third baby and this win will give it to them.

“Talk about the child growing up with issues,” Jess laughingly says to New Idea about if they win. “But we’re not one to go back on our word because we’d like to have another child anyway. Maybe we’ll leave it for a while just so that child never thinks it’s reason for existence is because of Darren, Neil and Shaynna!”

But it isn’t plain sailing for the Queenslanders and this week they come to blows. Firstly, Norm is forced to fire Jess when she slows down the deck laying. “He thinks he was doing me a favour by letting me do manual labour. It’s the classic long-term relationship argument of, ‘let them feel like they've had a win’,” Jess says.

But that wasn’t the end of Norm’s woes. Jess had a colour expert take a look at their apartment with some disappointing results. “She said the colour we’d painted the whole apartment felt cold and so without thinking, I told Norm ‘we have to repaint the whole apartment’.” Jess says. “Now me and Norm have had some barneys but I will never ever forget the look that Norm gave me. Out of all the things I’ve done to him I felt he took that the worst. I suppose I had a choice of paint or marriage and my relationship won!”

But when Keith discovered one of their contractors hadn’t been paid, an emotional Jess breaks down.

“I was in tears because we had a plan, it was all sorted, we scrimped and saved and then I stuffed it up by missing that the plasterer hadn’t invoiced,” she explains.

“But I sold what I could and Paal (Grant, their landscape designer) improvised like a little banshee.”

Despite all the ups and downs Jess and Norm don’t hold any grudges against Keith. “We do love Keith, he’s actually a softie,” she says. “He still rings Norm weekly and they complain to each other about their aches and pains.”