Check out what The Block stars Tess and Luke are doing now
- Tess and Luke became firm audience favourites on The Block in 2019, eventually winning the show
- The Cairns-based couple have now started a family and a business and are building their own home
- Luke has been wearing Steel Blue work boots since he started his apprenticeship, aged 15
To millions of people across Australia, Tess and Luke Struber are the talented young couple who won the home renovation reality TV show The Block in 2019 with their stunning transformation of a Melbourne apartment.
Their attention to detail, passion for construction and for renovation, incredible range of craftsmanship and design skills, and infectious personalities made them firm favourites with viewers. What Tess and Luke were up to on The Block was water cooler conversation in offices around the country. The show became a national obsession and the dark horse competitors went on to win not just the hearts of Australian audiences, but the show itself —taking home a life-changing $730,000 in prize money and profits.
What are Tess and Luke from The Block up to now?
A few years later and the cameras have gone, but the pace at which Tess and Luke live their lives — and their enthusiasm for home building — has not changed. In the past year they’ve welcomed baby Cleo into the family, started their own business (they’ve followed in Luke’s dad’s footsteps, and conduct building inspections) and begun construction on a family home to call their own.
“Babies, houses, businesses — we’ve never really done things by halves!” Luke said.
Luke has both a cabinetmaking and a carpentry apprenticeship under his belt. He has also completed his builder’s licence, which came through while he and Tess were on The Block.
“We were that busy I didn’t even have time to have a beer to celebrate what had been three years in the making,” he said.
Luke said he’d gone into building inspections because he wanted to help people who were investing hundreds of thousands of dollars of their hard-earned money into a home. He finds defects in properties and educates people about what that means and what to do about it. The couple run the business together.
Tess and Luke’s passion for quality remains
Tess said winning The Block had changed their lives “dramatically”.
“We’ve been able to achieve and do things that we never thought would’ve been possible,” she said. “It was one of the best days of our life, that’s for sure, and since getting the winnings we’ve been able to afford to buy an acre out on the Northern Beaches — an area we’ve had our eye on forever. We’ve been designing our home for about a year and a half and now the slab is just about to be poured.”
Tess and Luke have teamed up with a local builder to construct the house, but Luke said the couple had cherrypicked the plum jobs they want to do themselves.
“I’ll be making and installing the kitchen, laying all the floors, and doing all the carpentry work.”
Both Tess and Luke grew up in homes their dads built, and Tess said there was something to that, too.
“It’s being able to sit back and say, ‘I did that’, and to feel that pride,” she said. “And it will be cool to be able to say (to their daughter) ‘hey, your dad installed this kitchen; your dad laid this floor’.”
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Why Tess and Luke choose Steel Blue work boots
Luke has been wearing Steel Blue work boots since the day he started his first apprenticeship, aged 15.
“My boss walked me into the hardware store and said, ‘you choose a pair of boots; I’ll buy them for you’,” he said. “I went to the shop assistant and asked for the comfiest pair of boots on the market. They said, ‘You can’t go past Steel Blues’, and I have never been out of Steel Blue boots since — and I’m 33 now.”
Luke’s work boot of choice is the Argyle, with the zip.
“The zip up the side is the world’s greatest invention,” he said.
The Steel Blue boots worn on The Block garnered a lot of attention from TV audiences. For Tess, it was the first time she’d worn any work boots at all, let alone Steel Blue boots.
“I thought, ‘oh great, these are going to kill me’, but they were so comfortable,” she said. “I loved them. I wore them every single day on the show and then I’ve had a few pairs since.”
Tess chose to really make a statement, wearing our pink boots, which help raise money for the breast cancer charity Breast Cancer Care WA.
Follow Tess and Luke’s journey on their social accounts @TessandLuke.
Check out Steel Blue’s pink boots here or our Argyle Zip here. Head to your local Steel Blue stockist to discover work boots that are a mark of true skill, or shop online.
