Hardworking mum-of-two Shaynna relaxes at her home in Hawthorn. Picture: Nicole Cleary Source: HeraldSun
How do you give your home a more modern colour scheme that still blends in with the existing architecture? Our Interior Design expert, Shaynna Blaze, shows us some savvy tricks.
THINK you know Shaynna Blaze? Think again. This once single mum of two has gone from singing in dingy pubs to beating Jen Hawkins for the gong of our fave female TV presenter. Throw in online trolls, dealing with her mother's early onset of Alzheimer's and a design business, and it's clear Blaze rarely flicks her off switch, writes SIOBHAN DUCK.
Georgous flower posies and candles decorate the table. Picture: Nicole Cleary Source: HeraldSun
Instead, she's more likely to be found tapping away on the computer at 4am working on her second book.
After all, her daylight hours are already taken up with running her interior design business, public speaking commitments and training for a half-marathon.
Then there's the little matter of appearing on two successful television series — The Block for Channel 9 and Selling Houses Australia for Foxtel.
"I've had to start saying no to things — even though I don't want to — because I'm already working seven days a week," Blaze says. "But if someone could just create an eighth day I would happily take on more."
In between her many and varied commitments, Blaze, 48, somehow found time to open up on her life to Weekend; explaining her journey from wedding singer to reality star judge, the feud with The Block's twins and her heartbreak over her mother's Alzheimer's disease.
It's hard to believe that not all that long ago this empress of home design was a single mum of two, battling to make ends meet by singing in dingy pubs and clubs at night while her kids were in bed asleep.
She also worked as a wedding singer, and laughingly recalls repeatedly belting out power love ballads The Rose and Wind Beneath My Wings. During the day — in between caring for her children — she studied creative writing. And fulfilled her desire to titivate interiors by working on her family home. She painted the walls, overhauled the garden, made curtains and bedspreads for the kids' room. It kept costs down and allowed her to still do the work she loved and missed.
"I got really, really creative," she says. "But trying to tile the bathroom myself was definitely a mistake."
All glammed up and nowhere to go, Shaynna makes her garage look like the place to be. Picture: Nicole Cleary Source: HeraldSun
The perfect backdrop for a down-to-earth Shaynna to shine. Picture: Nicole Cleary Source: News Corp Australia
It is Blaze's honesty and down-to-earth manner that have made her such a success on the small screen. They also made her a target for online trolls last year.
Blaze was stunned at the viciousness of the response she received for daring to critique the work of Block favourites Alisa and Lysandra Fraser.
In an expletive-laden tirade, the twins accused Blaze of having it in for them, while Twitter lit up with accusations she was jealous that the former police women had set up a rival design firm.
Blaze was gobsmacked by it all.
"I'm a big supporter of women so for (viewers) to say I'm jealous of (the twins) is laughable," she says. "For people to say I'm being mean to the twins is just not true. I judge it from what I see.
"A friend told me that people on social media are a bit like a mad person shouting in the street. If they shout something awful at you, do you stop and talk to them or keep on going? I keep on going."
She says despite all the argy-bargy on TV and Twitter there is no rift with the twins.
"My husband is their personal trainer," she says. "Do you think they would use him as a trainer if there was a problem?"
Host Scott Cam can't believe all the fuss, either, saying the twins just didn't like to cop criticism.
"What you see is what you get with Shaynna," Cam says. "She's terrific. We are a bit like a family behind the scenes on the show. We will go out for tea together or better still to the pub for a few beers. She's always good for a laugh."
Blaze's fellow judge Neale Whitaker agrees.
Whitaker says he's learned a lot about design — and hard work — from Blaze.
"She's the real deal — an absolute powerhouse," he says. "Shaynna is the original Duracell bunny. I work pretty hard but when I hear what Shaynna's been up to I am exhausted."
But hard work and boundless energy are what have got Blaze where she is today.
When Blaze looks at her daughter Carly, 25, and son Jesse, 24, she cannot believe that she was already a mother at the same age.
"They're just kids — my babies," she says. "But I guess I wasn't much more than a kid myself when I had them. No one else I knew was having kids when I had my first baby. They were all off doing other things."
Unlike her children, Blaze never really had an opportunity or a desire to go travelling or spend all her waking hours partying (though she does admit to a wild rebellious period). A career in design was calling.
She went straight from school into studying design — finished her degree on a Friday and walked into her first job on Monday.
Motherhood and marriage followed soon after, at 23 and 24 respectively.
"My ex was a builder and so we worked together," she says. "I had the baby in the capsule at the building site with me. But when my son was 18 months old I realised I couldn't do it any more.
"I looked at the kids and had an epiphany. I needed to be home with them. They needed me."
Blaze admits it wasn't easy to put her career on ice. Though she adores her children, being a stay-at-home mum just wasn't something she had envisaged for herself. She wanted — needed — more and doesn't make any apologies for that.
Now happily remarried to her landscape gardener turned personal trainer husband Steve Vaughan, with her kids having left the nest, life hasn't slowed down for Blaze. Thanks to her starring role on The Block, she has found herself inundated with requests for work.
"A lot of people will stop me in the street and say, 'While I have you, can you give me some advice on what to do with this', and then take out pictures on their phone or iPad," she laughs.
"I say no. I don't give out free advice. You wouldn't expect the postman to deliver mail for free."
Sneak peek: Shayna puts her personal touch - a balance between art and photography - on her mantelpiece. Source: News Corp Australia
She admits that watching her two children leave her Melbourne home has been hard.
"It's awful," she says. "My daughter moved out five years ago, but my son was still here. When he left six months ago I cried over it.
"The house just feels so different. Even though I wasn't making him dinner every night or picking him up and dropping him off to places any more it still feels like there is something missing.
"I don't know how those women in their 50s and 60s who didn't have a career, but instead devoted themselves entirely to their families, deal with it. I cannot imagine what those women must go through."
Both Jesse and Carly are pursuing careers in the entertainment industry. Carly has been working as a runner on the set of The Block, while Jesse is hoping to become an actor. Both have been working at Joy FM.
"I have an app on my phone so I can listen to their shows even when I am travelling," the proud mother says.
"I wasn't on the set that much with Carly when she was there, but when I was we would share little smiles. We tried to keep it professional.
"My son has always been great at doing characters. And he has a photographic memory so learning scripts isn't a problem. He was born to act. I always wanted him to go in that direction. I will support them both in whatever they do as long as they're happy."
Blaze has followed her own parents' lead and encouraged her children to chase their dreams.
She says her mum and dad always had her back, helping her look after the kids when she was battling to make ends meet as a single mum. And inspiring and encouraging her to follow her design dreams from the time she was little.
Blaze believes her love of renovating and home improvement was fostered by her father.
"My dad was very creative," she says. "He would become interested in something like leadlighting for a few years, do everyone's windows, and then move on.
"I would help him with projects. I remember helping pick out tiles for the kitchen when I was a teenager.
"I knew very early on that I wanted to do something with design, though back then there weren't the same sort of opportunities. You either became an architect or worked in a shop doing curtains."
Of course Blaze did neither. She forged a career path decorating homes before it became trendy. And so when she saw an ad calling for designers to audition for a new TV show, she applied — mostly for a bit of fun.
Five minutes after she hit send on her email, she got a call inviting her to audition for Selling Houses. The rest, of course, is history.
Sadly, her parents never saw her success.
Her father died suddenly of a heart attack 16 years ago — before she landed the gig on Selling Houses.
"My dad wasn't exactly thrilled when I had a baby out of wedlock," Blaze says.
"It wasn't what he had envisaged for me. Of course, later, the kids became the best things that ever happened to me but at the time it was hard. I wish he could have seen this."
Blaze's mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at 64. Watching her mother deteriorate before her eyes has been heartbreaking.
She admits to being racked with guilt for not being able to visit her mother as often as she would like due to her work commitments and then being distressed when she does because the mother she had adored is all but gone.
"I remember one day she looked at me, terrified," Blaze says. "I don't know whether she was scared of me or scared because she didn't know who I was. It's awful. I will never forget that look on her face. I feel guilty
I don't go to see her more but she doesn't really know I am there when I do. And going in is awful.
"She's not really living any more. It's not right that someone can just lie in a bed for five years, with someone feeding her to keep her alive."
Blaze says the one thing that did seem to reach her mother was when she sang to her. She says her parents were her two most devoted fans during her previous incarnation as a "night-time chanteuse".
"It didn't matter how dingy or dodgy the pub was, they would be there to watch me," she laughs.
Of course these days she doesn't have to sing for her supper. The last time she belted out a few tunes was to open this year's ASTRA Awards, which she not only hosted but where she beat Jen Hawkins to win the coveted Favourite Female award for her work on Selling Houses Australia. It was the second year in a row she had won the title.
Blaze still doesn't quite believe her metamorphosis from suburban mum to award-winning TV personality.
"It blows my mind that all this has happened," she says. "We had some really hard times. Happy times too, but it was tough.
"It happened organically. When I got back into the industry after having my kids I was in my early 30s and I was like a dinosaur. I had been working in commercial design but I made the switch to residential.
"I often tell people not to worry if your plans don't work out the way you hoped because it's the little twists and turns that can make all the difference."
The Block Glasshouse, Channel 9, 6.30pm tomorrow and 7.30pm Mon-Thu.
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