House Rules finale: Adam and Lisa say they’ll get married early if they win

HOUSE Rules’ Carole and Russell admit their constant brawling could cost them the win in tonight’s grand finale.

A SEPTEMBER wedding, a career change, and babies beckon for House Rules finalists Lisa Lamond and Adam Dovile if the Victorian couple win hit reality renovation show House Rules tonight.

Meanwhile, WA couple Carole and Russell Bramston fear their constant bickering on the show might cost them the win.

Lamond, 29, who applied for the show not only with no renovation experience, but also without telling her tradie fiancé Dovile, says she never dreamed the pair would rise from the renovation rubble to make the finals — but the gamble paid off.

“I think Adam at first was not happy with me doing this behind his back, but he’s grinning from ear to ear now,” she said ahead of tonight’s grand final in which the pair square off against Perth veterans Carole and Russel Bramtson.

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Lamond and Dovile will marry in September. But a win tonight — with the victor having their mortgage paid off — might escalate the wedding plans, and few others.

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Big plans ... House Rules finalists Adam Dovile and Lisa Lamond want to start a family.

“Our wedding was meant to be September 5 on the Sunshine Coast, but I’m just seeing if there’s any venues in Melbourne that might work,” Lamond said.

“Ads (Adam) has a big family so it might be easier to bring mine down from Brisbane.”

Lamond says the pair “haven’t dared dream about winning”.

“I don’t think we stand a chance against Russell and Carole, but it would change our lives,” she said.

“It would mean a bigger focus on starting a family, essentially ... a career change for me first (she works in HR), and getting married and having children — at least trying — who knows if we’d be lucky in that respect?

“We’ve been engaged for nearly two years, so getting married is most pressing. But once we do that, Ads has got no more excuses.”

“It’s easy to get tunnel vision about your career, but design is something I now want to do and this has opened my eyes to new possibilities and that life is what you make it.”

For the first time the House Rules winner will be decided by a combined judges and viewers’ vote — with the judges’ vote the new element in the decider. Last year’s winner was decided purely by the public.

The judges’ scores — based on the final renovation project, count for 50 per cent of the result. The viewer vote, conducted online and via SMS, forms the other 50 per cent.

It’s the public vote that Russell, 55, and Carole, 53, fear might bring them down.

Made arguing an art form ... House Rules finalists Carole and Russell Bramston. Picture: Supplied

“We are more or less resigned to the fact we are not going to win — because maybe the people are just sick of us arguing,” Russell said.

“But we made an art form out of arguing long before the show, and had some good times and good arguments during it. What you saw of us on TV is pretty much what you get, so maybe people relate to that.”

For Channel Seven, the finale is part of a wider competition tonight, with its reality renovation juggernaut which has dominated the ratings this tipped to knock off Channel Nine’s, The Voice Kids in the ratings.

The two shows met in opposing timeslots a fortnight ago when The Voice Kids debuted, Nine winning that round with an average 1.65 million viewers in five capital cities, to House Rules’ 1.51 million.

House Rules did not air last Sunday night, but on Monday, again smashed Nine’s ‘grown up’ The Voice stablemate with 1.491 viewers to Nine’s 1.27 million.

Last year’s House Rules finale drew 1.9 million metropolitan viewers. Seven says House Rules is the number one renovation show of 2014, averaging 2.2 million viewers in metropolitan and regional combined ratings, with its audience up 21 per cent on last year.

• For more on the House Rules finale, see today’s TV Guide