| Back to home  Marta and Adolfo have lived in their current home for 16 years. When she has a spare moment, Marta loves gardening, cooking and home decorating. However, she is so busy with community work, she hardly ever gets a chance to do any of them. Marta's friends say her tired and worn-out house could indeed use a makeover.  A new garden in which to relax would be much appreciated by Marta. She tells Peter she would love the backyard cleaned up and more useable for entertaining — one of her greatest joys. Marta loves light pastel colours and would like some fresh colour schemes in the home. She wants her knick-knacks on display and her wine collection in the living room. But Peter wants to do a bit of de-cluttering and he and the team have come up with some fabulous space-saving ideas for the living room. Marta also loves to dance, salsa, South American and classical. Both she and Adolfo enjoy a spin around the dance floor. Well, just wait till you see what the Reno team has in store for the couple's home. Get your salsa gear on, it's time to party! 
Marta and Adolfo's home is always open to people and interior designer Tara Dennis wants to freshen up the hallway and living space to make it even more welcoming, with: -
New paint in the hallway, new lights and new storage. -
Brand new furniture in the living room. -
New paint, blinds and air-conditioner in the living room. Tara plans to replace the lights in the living room because the ones that are there are poorly positioned and leave dark spots in the room. She's going to use low-voltage halogen downlights, her favourite. As an added bonus, the lights have little swivels, so can be angled towards a wall to show off lovely artwork. Tara's recommendation:When installing new lighting, add a dimmer switch. That way you have total control of the light levels and the mood in the room. Outside, landscaper Greg Norton wants to create the perfect outdoor entertaining area for the social couple, complete with new paving, pergola and poolside cabana. They first need to: -
Remove all the grass and put down paving. -
Put in a pergola above the paved area. -
Dress up the drab pool edging with a garden bed of tropical plants — just great for a South American theme. -
Cut an opening in the old garage and make it into the perfect outdoor room. Meanwhile, Scott prepares to break a hole in one wall of the shed and shows us how important it is for everyone's safety to get the experts in and wear the correct protective clothing when cutting into and removing asbestos. Tara plans to clear everything out of the old garage, which was being used as a storage room, in order to make way for its transformation into a poolside cabana. What has to be done: -
Remove a whole wall. When the wall goes, the room will look straight onto the big pergola outside and will encourage everyone out to the pool area. -
Render the walls. -
Put new paint on the ceiling. -
Put in new lights and a new floor. -
Decorate with new furniture. Tara is going to use a skim coat paster mix, which is much lighter and gives a beautiful finish, to render the walls of the cabana. She's made up two paster mixes, a yellow ochre plus a rouge. The yellow goes on first and the rouge is blended through. When it dries, it dies back to a beautiful soft chalky blue with a hint of colour variation for interest. It's going to be party central! Building the pergola
Normally, when building a pergola, the Rescue team uses 90X90 treated pine posts. But for this job, they are using big treated pine logs, which will give a nice tropical touch to the garden. They are priced at $160 each. Safety tip: Don't break your back. The bigger the logs, the more people you'll need to lift them! Preparing a kitchen for painting
Inside, Rebecca is preparing the kitchen to be painted. Preparation in a kitchen is very important, especially due to the grease and moisture that gathers on the walls. So you'll need to: -
Wash the walls down with something like a sugar soap. -
Sand the walls lightly. -
If using an acrylic paint (like Rebecca is), it is important to add an anti-mould solution before you start painting. Hunky celebrity guest apprentice Shane Crawford causes quite a stir when he arrives and the girls lose track of what they are doing. And Rebecca steals a quick hug! Scott loves the fact that Adolfo has a shed, but by crikey it's hard to get in there! He's going to sort it out by: - Taking out all the gear that's in there and cleaning it.
- Ripping out all the shelving and putting in a new adjustable metal shelving rack system.
- Putting everything back, so there will be more room to move!
And Tara's got some great ideas about sorting Adolfo's belongings. If you're a hoarder, here's how to get sorted. Use a colour-coded system, like Tara is using in Adolfo's storeroom. Have different coloured tubs for different appliances. Tara's using blue tubs for Adolfo's car things, green tubs for garden things and yellow tubs for all the power tools. 
What a beautiful job the team has done. Marta and Adolfo will be ecstatic! 
Inside, the living room and hall look gorgeous with: -
Freshly painted walls in the hallway, in a colour called Stunning Gold, chosen for its sunny, fresh look and because the colour goes beautifully with the floor tiles. - New paint and halogen down ceiling lights in the living room.
- New bamboo blinds (for only $230).
- New tinting on the back windows (this will cool down the west-facing house considerably).
- New modern, space-saving furniture.
- New plasma TV screen.
- Tara's canvases on the walls.
Rebecca has had the skylight panel in the living room professionally tinted, which still allows the light in but stops 60 percent of the heat. A great solution for a hot room. Paint tips: - Ceiling: use a flat paint
- Walls: use flat or low-sheen
- Trims or timber work: use gloss or semi-gloss
Painting ceilings
Peter has used Never Miss paint on the living room ceiling. It looks pink in colour, which means when you paint on a white ceiling you can see where you're painting. And it dries white. What a great idea!  Outside, Jody has used a beautiful array of plants to give the garden a tropical effect, including kentia palms and horsetail plants, which have an impressive coral red colour, and sprays of foliage, ideal for spilling over embankments, raised planters or rockeries. She's also used eucalyptus mulch in the garden bed, which has an attractive warm brown colour and is fine grade. If using mulch in a garden bed, you'll need it to be 50-100ml thick. Mulch regulates soil temperature, keeps the weeds down and also saves moisture around the delicate root zone. Jody's planting tip: - Kentia palms are commonly used inside, but are also good to plant outside. If you plan to plant them outside, make sure you ask your nursery for a sun-grown variety, that way you'll avoid a lot of the browning off that can happen to the leaves if they're not used to being outside.
- When doing group planting, use an uneven number. This gives a natural effect.
The tropical garden complements the gorgeous Latin-inspired cabana and paved entertaining area with pergola that the team has lovingly created. Back home from their dream trip, Marta and Adolfo are speechless and overwhelmed when they walk through their beautiful new home. And the biggest surprises are yet to come ... Mark from Wizard Home Loans has dropped by to hand a stunned Marta a cheque for $10,000 and as Marta's sister Dora appears through a door and goes over to her shocked sister, everyone breaks into tears. As Adolfo says an emotional "Thank you Channel Nine. My house is your house", the Latin Explosion dancers arrive and everyone gets down to some serious salsa fun. Congratulations Marta, we hope you enjoy many happy times in your new home! Your community thanks you. 
Park Hyatt,
Melbourne  Leah
whisks the happy couple off to the world-class Park Hyatt hotel located in
one of Melbourne's most historic areas. Melbourne also just happens to be
the place where Marta's favourite TV personality, Eddie McGuire, records his show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. And Marta gets the
treat of her life when she's taken to meet Eddie and watch the taping of the show.
The couple spends a fabulous two days enjoying the
Park Hyatt's warm ambience, superb cuisine,
and exceptional personalized service as well as the many attractions ofMelbourne. And Marta gets a
wonderful surprise when Leah presents her with a videotape message from
her sister Dora who lives in Uruguay. But Reno
Rescue's got an even bigger surprise in store for Marta — the
team has flown Dora to
Sydney
and she's waiting at
Marta's house for her return. That's sure to be a momentous, emotional
reunion! More about our sponsors
and suppliers. Back to home | 
