Restoring HOPE

THE BLOCK JUDGE LENDS HER PROJECT MANAGEMENT SKILLS TO A FILM THAT GIVES A VOICE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVORS

- Cynthia Wang

OUR HOUSE

Although Blaze says the home in The Fort looked a bit scary before the Country Home Rescue renovation, "there was a sense of peace once we made the movie there". She now uses the property mostly for work. "This house just started having this significance in our lives," she says.

Known for her stunning room transformations on Selling Houses Australia and her patient, on-brief critiques on The Block, Shaynna Blaze has showcased that good design and sound investments go hand-in-hand. But taking on the renovation of a 130-year-old historical house in regional Kyneton, Victoria - the eventual centrepiece of her six-episode Nine Network series Country Home Rescue - would offer her the best return of her career.

Blaze, 60, first bought the property to be the primary set for a film co-directed by her son, Jess Kenneally, 33, and daughter Carly Anne Kenneally, 35. "To think that was six years ago, I really can't believe it," Blaze tells WHO. The movie, titled The Fort, follows a young mother trying to shelter her 10-year-old son from his father's abusive behaviour - passed down from his own childhood trauma while also instilling in him the strength to break that cycle.