Meg & Dan's fairytale Reality bites ‘FATE BROUGHT US TOGETHER

The DIY favourites share their real-life love story and the secrets to a stable relationship

- Florence Hartigan

The Block NZ’s Meg Leen is honoured to have been christened “Site Mum” by her castmates on the Three home renovation show, but she didn’t always feel that way.

“At first, I wasn’t that happy about it,” admits the 36-year-old. “Tim and Arty are good-looking boys, and it was pretty disappointing to realise I was more of a mother figure than a contender!”

Each with two children from previous relationships, Meg and her Team Orange teammate, hubby Dan, are used to being parental figures. The Cantabrian couple live with their blended family in a six-bedroom house in Rangiora, just north of Christchurch.

They bought the former equestrian centre three years ago and moved in straight away, renovating as they went.

“We fixed up the stables so we’ve got five bedrooms that used to be horse stalls,” explains Meg. “There’s just one toilet and shower, then a tiny living area. It’s a work in progress, but it suits us down to the ground.”

With a happy family and their dream house, all the puzzle pieces seem to have fallen in to place for this handy couple, who also run their small building company, Southern Collective, from home. But when Dan and Meg met five years ago, the last thing they were expecting was to find a partner who was a perfect fit.

“I had been separated from my wife for about seven years,” shares builder Dan, 46. “I had my kids and I was living the single man’s dream! So meeting Meg then was quite the sideswipe, really!

“We met at the pub through mutual friends and straight from the word go, there was an instant connection – and heaps of weird coincidences. I know it sounds hippie-skippie, but it turned out our lives had been very close for years, but we’d never come together.”