Tour Mina Starsiak Hawk and Vernon Davis’ Season 7 ‘Rock the Block’ Home

Set this slideshow to a jock-rock classic and you’ve got the quintessential cinematic training montage on your hands. Mina Starsiak Hawk rose to HGTV stardom in Indianapolis, where she and her Good Bones co-star (and mom), Karen E Laine, brought timeworn homes back from the brink. She also got an unforgettable taste of competition on Rock the Block Season 1. “I don’t want a participation trophy,” she said. “I very much want to win.”

Vernon Davis comes to the block with a competitive edge honed in the NFL. He’s a Super Bowl-winning tight end who pivoted from success in professional sports to a multi-hyphenate career as a producer, an author, an artist and a design firm owner. And he's ready to learn from his teammate: “I’m the big little fish on the block. Now I definitely feel like I have to elevate my game.”

Season 7’s lighting budget is a real blowout: The competition heads to Sin City, where renovators will transform 5,000-square-foot, single-story properties with soaring ceilings, interior courtyards and cavernous RV garages. Home values start at $1.9 million. Budgets cap at $275,000. Week-to-week winnings come with a twist: Teams who win the judges’ approval have the option to add $3,000 to the next week’s budget or receive a $1,000 bonus to their final appraisal value.

Season 7 pairs HGTV renovation legends with celebrities who made their names in other fields. Kim Wolfe (Why the Heck Did I Buy This House?) finds an ally with fellow Survivor competitor and best friend Chelsea Meissner, while seasoned mentor Taniya Nayak (Battle on the Beach) partners up with 98 Degrees’ Drew Lachey. Renovation Resort’s Scott McGillivray rounds out the roster with singer and television personality Brooke Hogan. Wild cards abound, and it's anyone’s game.

Mina and Vernon agreed to focus on comfortable elegance for their design approach, and the initially icy main suite needed every bit of their crowd-pleasing artistry. They demolished an awkward, space-gobbling rotunda that served as a roundabout between the wing’s functional spaces, then focused on adding warmth and character to the primary bedroom. Mina, in classic Mina fashion, added inexpensive molding. “It’s just composite; super-affordable, and it gives us texture and depth,” she explained. Creamy white paint and walnut-toned flooring offer versatile, transitional charm aimed to attract a wide swath of buyers. Touchable neutral fabrics for the upholstered headboard and chairs lend texture that doesn’t demand attention. Layered lighting and a space-defining traditional area rug add extra coziness.

“Because we’re not dramatically changing the footprint of our bedroom, we have to bring in some other components to impress the judges,” Mina said. Features like the potted olive tree and molding emphasize how high the ceilings are, while carefully chosen transitional pieces demonstrate that the large space can still feel welcoming. “It’s a family home, so I think it needs to be a place that feels comfortable [and] not too fancypants,” she reasoned. She and Vernon also selected a double-sided water-vapor fireplace for the space — more on that when we have a look at the en suite — that gives its bumpout a sense of purpose and creates a connection between the bedroom and the principal bath.

In place of the ill-considered rotunda, Mina and Vernon decided to create a curve in the wall between the bedchamber and the closet. “Everybody loves customization. There’s nothing like … feeling like your home is totally different than everyone else’s,” Vernon said. “I love it. Gosh, that’s a great curve. Makes me think about when I was running track and running around that curve.”

“I think the changes we’re [making give] us a little more room, a little more flow through the spaces. It’s going to fit in with our goal of making it more comfortable,” Mina agreed.

Mina and Vernon suspected their competition would reach for tile in the bath suite, so they chose to distinguish themselves with a glassed-in steam shower featuring an unexpected, velvety-looking microcement treatment. “There’s no grout lines, no veining and then you’re going to have these few pretty things,” Mina explained. “The tub color is a nice brown, and the brass tends to have kind of a soft look to it, so I think they’re all just going to vibe really well together.”

For the wall across from the bath suite’s wet area, Mina envisioned a “big chunk of vanity.” “All the way across!” Vernon agreed.

“Yeah, with cabinets going up on the side,” Mina continued.

A pale stone slab with twin sinks sits beneath an arched vanity mirror that, like the paneling in the bedroom, emphasizes the home’s height. While open counter space is minimal here, hidden storage is limitless, thanks to the counter-to-ceiling upper cabinets and wall-to-wall drawers and cupboards.

Television icon and restaurateur Lisa Vanderpump and her collaborator, designer Nick Alain, hopped over from their Vegas hotel-in-progress to survey Mina and Vernon’s first week of work. The curved wall turned out to be one of the team’s greatest strengths and vulnerabilities: “When you first walk [into the bedroom,] you didn’t walk into something, it just kind of brought you in,” Nick said with approval. However, the fact that the team’s budget couldn’t accommodate curved storage in the closet made that space feel relatively meager. “There was a big waste of space there,” Lisa said. “For me, I feel that they missed an opportunity.” Though Mina and Vernon created the duo’s favorite bedroom, they couldn’t clinch the overall win.

Mina and Vernon strolled into their foyer knowing that they wanted to maintain their first week’s momentum and take big swings once again. Vernon promptly deleted the rear wall: “I feel like I need more light, just hitting my face. Don’t you feel like [instead of] this wall we should see outdoors?”

“One hundred percent,” Mina agreed. She had a similar approach to the front door and entryway: “I would like something that’s [fully] glass, [a] table [and] a little drop-zone area.” She softened the transition from the foyer’s lower ceiling to the great room’s more expansive dimensions by building faux beams she and Vernon painted to match the surface above them (for a total cost of just $1,380). The dark credenza beside the front door complements both the door’s iron hardware and the crisp black contours of the glass-walled den beside it.

The budgetary wiggle room Mina scored by building faux ceiling beams went straight into the feature she pronounced her baby: a custom-molded, one-of-a-kind mantel she commissioned just for their home (for $5,320). Chevron tiles in a contrasting glaze darken the fireplace’s interior, while textural, neutral accessories create a natural gathering place. “It makes you want to move your shoulders,” Vernon said. “You just feel good all over your body when you see something like that.”

“You know what you feel?” Mina responded. “Comfortably elegant.”

Mina customized the great room’s design even more by designing arched bookcase niches on either side of the curvaceous fireplace, then centering a ceiling beam at the top of each of those niches’ arches. That repetition and symmetry give the once-cavernous space texture and order, and occupants can appreciate the room’s grandeur without getting lost in it.

In lieu of building out a formal dining room in the den area, Mina and Vernon decided to delineate a laid-back entertaining space beyond the seating surrounding the fireplace. The setup feels like the center of a purposeful zone, thanks to the visual cue of the chandelier — but c’mon, this team installed 20-foot bifold doors at the rear of their home to beckon natural light inside. Interrupting that light with more walls would have been tragic.

Taking the guest-judging baton for the second week of competition, multiple-season winner and Luxe for Less host Michel Smith Boyd returned to the block. He gravitated to Mina and Vernon’s den, a power move that constituted their other big swing of the week. Investing heavily in plate-glass walls, they created another sitting area that would be credited as another bedroom in their final appraisal. Michel loved their aesthetic and their logic. “This is a player move,” he said. “Let me tell you something: [Floor-to-ceiling interior glass] is sexy. Everybody wants this. Everybody wants this!”

Game recognized game. “They’re thinking about that final judging, adding up that tally. Counting this as a bedroom is another way to sell a house,” he told Ty. “This feels like a big spend, but it was worth it.”

Bearing in mind that the moves they made in their kitchen could mean the difference between winning and losing the whole block, Mina and Vernon came to play. At Vernon’s suggestion, they wrapped drywall around their kitchen vent for a customized look. At Mina’s insistence, they invested in a massive refrigerator and a “big, big-boy stove.” They spent $14,500 on cabinets, then experimented with layout to be sure the reeded-glass sections were positioned to maximize both aesthetics and functionality. As in the rest of their home, they chose neutral tones (that would make the space feel ethereal) and high-quality finishing touches (like solid-brass hardware).

Mina and Vernon invested a whopping $8,430 in a dolomite slab for what they called a “Vernon-sized island,” and they’d happily do it again. The dimensions were a no-brainer: “Vernon and I both live around our kitchen island,” Mina explained. “We don’t eat at our dining table, we don’t really eat in the living room. This is where you are, so this is the spot that has to be amazing.”

The material itself was also an intuitive splurge. “I really wanted a natural stone because I wanted the depth,” Mina said. “This dolomite [is] a mineral similar to limestone, but it has a little more magnesium in it, and you just get this really pretty mixture of colors and veining. And it looks so soft!”

Much as the massive island in the principal kitchen reflected Mina and Vernon’s casual eating style, the seriously space-planned storage in the second, pantry-style kitchen had its designers’ fingerprints all over it. “Mina hates clutter, so we can’t leave anything on the counter when she’s around,” Vernon noted. “We got a lot of storage for her and the judges.”

The palette in this satellite space is slightly darker than the one in the larger room beside it. The home’s functional zones are complementary without feeling indistinguishable from one another.

Windowless, cabinet-lined spaces like this second kitchen can feel claustrophobic without built-in breathers. Mina positioned a single, underlit floating shelf on the tiled backsplash behind the sink and styled the area above it to offer a bit of aesthetic elbow room. Understated touches like this are what she’s all about.

“Every detail really matters because our mantra’s been [that] we don’t want, like, the one thing that punches you in the face when you walk in,” Mina explained. “We want all these little things to add up to this really beautiful, really comfortably elegant feeling when you’re in the home.”

Unlike the kitchens, the library-styled morning room beyond them does not reflect Mina’s lifestyle — though she’s hoping it might one day. At Vernon’s suggestion (and thanks to $1,360 in bookcase materials), it’s now an airy and well-appointed multipurpose space. “I have two little kids. I don’t read for pleasure much nowadays,” Mina confessed. “But anyone … would still love to have it! It’s beautiful. I would buy books to fill it!”

“Being able to tie this shelving in to this space really works with this room overall and it stands out as soon as you walk in,” Vernon noted. “You have the nice light coming in and it’s right next to the kitchen, so I think it’s a great use of space.”

The luck of the draw brought a very sympathetic judge to the block for Week 3. Two-time Rock the Block veteran (and Season 5 kitchen champ) Page Turner built a living-room library when she was a first-time competitor. Predictably, the Love It or List It designer adored Mina and Vernon’s take on the theme. “This built-in bookshelf is a winner for Page Turner! I love that. Added values all around,” Page said. She especially appreciated both the lighting on the shelves and the pendant centered in the room. “Because of where they put the light fixture, they can always convert this … to another eat-in area if they wanted to,” she told Ty.

The fourth week of competition took Mina and Vernon across their home’s courtyard to the separate 250-square-foot space they were expected to transform into a multigenerational suite, complete with a kitchenette. With laser focus on eventual appraisal, Mina knew they’d get the biggest bang for their remaining bucks by blowing way past a kitchenette and creating a full-fledged kitchen. “At least a 30-inch sink base, a 24-inch dishwasher, a 30-inch stove,” she explained.

Another array of generous upper and lower cabinets ($7,480) — and finishes that looked every bit as elegant as the ones in the principal kitchen they’d just completed — made the most of their budget. “I think if we can stay under $25,000, that would be a good investment in this space to get us from a bathroom and a kitchenette to a full rental apartment,” Mina said.

The generous, wraparound prep and cooking space here is a bigger lift than it might seem to be, as Mina and Vernon had to pull up both of these windows to accommodate the full-sized, L-shaped countertop. Using two walls for kitchen storage also afforded them the opportunity to make design decisions a kitchenette couldn’t accommodate — like these floating shelves ($1,050). “[By] knocking out some of the uppers, we save a little bit of money, and then the floating shelves give us a design opportunity to make something pretty and make it feel a little bit lighter visually,” Mina said.

Walling off a bedroom wasn’t a priority for Mina and Vernon’s design plan or appraised-value strategy. “Because if we create a bedroom in here with a wall, we have the same result on an appraisal,” Mina said.

“I don’t think we should put a wall up,” Vernon agreed. “You want to have it nice and open, like a studio. You have a studio feel.” A structured daybed, upholstered occasional chairs and a dining set demonstrate the versatility of this wide-open living space without making it feel smaller.

Offering an open-plan studio space didn’t mean presenting a featureless white box. “I feel like designing small spaces is a double-edged sword,” Mina mused. “On one hand, you just have [fewer] decisions to make, but you have to be very thoughtful because you have to make the best use of every single square foot.” In this suite, the duo built a graceful arch that echoes additions in the main house and makes the closet between the sitting area and the bathroom feel more integrated.

Mina and Vernon invested $3,810 in handmade tile for their suite’s shower, then ornamented it with exposed plumbing in eye-catching brass. “We could probably get away with lower-end [materials], but if it was someone who was going to use this for another family member and not as a rental? You would never skimp on your grandma, you’d be like, ‘You get the best tile and the best cabinets!’” Mina told Vernon.

“I think it’s going to look really dramatic when we finish, but it’s also going to look super elegant, and it’s going to feel like it’s truly different. It separates itself from any other bathroom, because it’s unique,” Vernon said.

For the fourth round of judging, the evaluations were coming from inside the block: The teams scored each other on their handiwork. Chelsea and Kim (above) were among the kitchen’s many awestruck fans: “I mean, this is gorgeous,” Chelsea said. “They have all this storage that the other [kitchens] didn’t have!”

Scott echoed Chelsea’s praise. “The cabinets right to the ceiling, are you kidding me?! Going through this space, I feel like we didn’t do enough!”

The suite’s staging was somewhat underwhelming for the judges, but the bathroom’s high-end finishes ended their tours on a high note. Everyone loved that showstopping tile and exposed plumbing in the shower.

Mina and Vernon approached this utilitarian space with the more-is-more feedback they’d gotten on their primary-suite closet in mind. They invested a whopping $4,180 in shelving and cabinetry that addressed every laundry-related need a homeowner could have. These expansive countertops and open shelves stand across from floating shelves, drawers, four hampers and a coat closet deep enough for a small dresser. “I firmly believe you can never have enough storage,” Mina said. “We’re going to make the best possible use of all the space we have!”

Though they weren’t interested in making a major investment in their property’s home office, Mina and Vernon did want to impress the judges with bespoke details that would demonstrate their creativity. They built an arched bookshelf niche into the room’s rear wall, then chose an elegant, oversized chandelier ($350) to serve as their statement piece. Since the room enjoyed an abundance of natural light from a slider that adjoined the home’s interior courtyard, airy and organic furnishings that emphasized that sense of freshness and space practically selected themselves.

The RV garage was the fifth week’s season-defining, budget-busting clincher, and Mina and Vernon had been dreaming of it since the competition began. With 18-foot ceilings and larger-than-life proportions, the space could accommodate any weekend warrior’s fleet of toys. It could also be converted into a gym and more. Accessible from the laundry room and via a windowed, roll-up door, the first portion of the RV garage is now a casual, crowd-pleasing workout space.

Other garage conversions, please try harder. Taking Ty’s exhortation to “turn [this practical zone] into something that elevates the way somebody actually lives,” Mina and Vernon spent most of the week's $60,000 — more than half of their remaining budget — on creating a full-fledged loft apartment. Their labor of love boasts 160 additional square feet on its second-level sleeping space (and plenty of room for Vernon, at 6'3", to stand up straight there with room to spare). “It’s Super Bowl time. I legit think this is how we win,” Mina said.

Accessible via its own exterior door and completely walled off from the gym, this space supplements the multigenerational suite’s potential for rental income. “[This] income suite is our biggest chance at winning the whole appraised value. So it’s a big deal for us,” Mina added.

The loft apartment’s full kitchen — the property’s third, we’ll remind you — is the product of Mina’s strategy and Vernon’s ever-growing confidence in his design choices. Mina realized that the kitchen and bath could share plumbing with the home’s main suite, and Vernon selected the sage-green backsplash tiles and paint, as well as the space’s finishes. “I walked into the apartment and I took charge,” he said. “Mina didn’t expect it. She looked at me and was like, ‘OK, I like what I’m getting here!'”

“This is a perfect apartment,” Mina said. “We’ve added a whole bathroom, a whole kitchen, a whole income suite.”

One of the original Real Housewives of New York City (and a celebrated designer, author and cabaret singer), Luann de Lesseps brought her multi-hyphenate style savvy to render the block’s fifth verdict. She’s a difficult woman to surprise, but Mina and Vernon brought the thunder. “It was really creative and unbelievable how you managed to make that garage look fabulous,” Luann told them. “And it’s a great added value, you know, because you have all that living space! The bathroom was gorgeous … I really loved that studio apartment.” And Mina had her first-ever win on the block.

Mina and Vernon played plunge-pool roulette to win one of four water-feature designs for their backyard and walked away with two 11-foot round pools that made them the envy of the block. In a Vegas-worthy move, they placed the vessels side by side like stacks of poker chips and created a copper-lined cutout that would cascade water from the upper pool to the lower one. “I love that it’s copper. I’m a sucker for anything copper, and it’ll patina really pretty over time,” Mina said. Integrated with loose natural stones, desert plants and a two-level brick patio, the pools are the yard’s crown jewels.

In a region where summer temperatures regularly climb to 115 degrees, Mina and Vernon planned to focus the majority of their outdoor oomph on the covered patio’s long, shaded spaces. They revisited the judge-wowing move of installing a two-sided fireplace and mounted outdoor televisions on each of the walls above it. They also installed a ceiling fan above an outdoor living room beside sliding doors that lead to the great room. A dining area at the foot of the patio benefits from breezes without exposing guests to direct sun.

The team threw even more shade by building a pale stone patio outside the morning room and topping it with a sleek black pergola with a louvered roof. The expansive outdoor kitchen they created beneath it is just around the corner from the outdoor dining area, and its generous wraparound bar area easily seats more than a dozen guests. Finally, an angular fire feature serves as a dramatic space divider between the patio and the turf. This yard will get better and better throughout the day.

Sectioning off a portion of the gargantuan yard would boost the value of their already precious (and week-winning) RV garage loft apartment, so Mina and Vernon created a private oasis for that rental property that revisited the overall yard design in miniature. They covered the majority of the unit’s designated yard in turf, then added a rock border and hardy landscaping that would create visual texture and privacy over time. An L-shaped pergola in the corner of the yard provides much-needed shade and a cozy nook for a cafe table and chairs.

Two-time Super-Bowl-winning wide receiver Danny Amendola — who’s now in the luxury-home business — came to the block to weigh in on his fellow former footballer’s outdoor work. He appreciated Vernon and Mina’s thoughtful styling in the side yard, where hard-wearing turf and hardscaping are styled as an agility park for dogs. “This offers their own little sanctuary [with] more natural rock [and] more trees. [And] the fake grass is easy to clean up. This will add value to the house,” he noted.

With sensibilities similar to Vernon’s, he appreciated the televisions and entertaining-focused activity areas — but as a former Vegas resident, he was also sensitive to the region’s scorching sun and sky-high temperatures, and he yearned for even more shade structures by the pools. “Still,” he said, “a great build.”

With $30,000 of their $275,000 budget remaining, it was time for Mina and Vernon to put the finishing touches on the exterior treatments they began planning in the first week. They painted their home’s stucco both white and a warm, contrasting brown, then invested $6,850 in wood siding that adds horizontal texture. “I know it’s a small thing, wrapping the wood all the way around outside and inside the corners, but I think it’s those little things that all add up to the big picture,” Mina said.

She also insisted on installing window boxes full of vivid blooms on the covered patio, a curb-appeal booster she’d grown to appreciate in the early years of having her real-estate license. “More than once I’d roll up to show someone a house and they wouldn’t even want to go in because they didn’t like the outside,” she recalled. “You have to make what’s right in front of them perfect.”

After confessing she loathed the solid, builder-grade front door, Mina swapped it out for a three-paned glass replacement that framed both the courtyard and the second exterior door. “I just want to be able to see,” she explained. “And I feel like our whole thing every week for the last however many weeks is [that] you want to see something in the distance so it makes you want to go in there.” Surrounded by five narrow windows and textural wood siding, this entrance now greets guests like a gallery wall — complete with a landscape at its center.

Mina and Vernon were determined to design a crowd-pleasing courtyard that would feel like a warm hug — and could transition to suit anyone’s taste. After building out a graceful, Mediterranean-style surround for the fireplace, crisscrossing the space with cafe lights and adding more sconces, Mina kept things tone-on-tone and minimalistic. “Maybe it would be cool to do a water feature or cool to do a tree planted in the ground, [but] you can’t really undo that easily,” she explained. Pale, stone-bordered pavers and seating areas that can be reconfigured round out the design.

Former longtime Vegas residents (and perennial HGTV stars) Drew and Jonathan Scott came to the block to tour the contestants’ renovations (and read the tea leaves on what local appraisers might think of their work). “One thing I know about you — because we’ve known each other a very long time — you know how to add value, and that’s the whole competition here,” Drew told Mina. They appreciated the second kitchen more than the first, and the multi-gen suite’s kitchen even more. While the Scotts might have yearned for more risk-taking in Vernon and Mina’s house, it was undeniable that buyers would resonate with their choices.

When Mina and Vernon’s neighbors were finally able to check out their home, they admired their moves. “Mina and Vernon’s house looks like a cross between Mediterranean and Miami. They have this perfect balance of elevated [and] sophisticated but calm and European,” Scott noted. His teammate wanted justice for a criticism they’d faced in the great room: “Hey, didn’t somebody hate on them for not doing the [ceiling] beams in a different color?” Brooke asked. “I like it!”

Scott read their game plan accurately. “Their eye is on final appraisal. It’s very safe, it’s very strategic, you walk in there [and] it is very comfortable.” Who wouldn’t feel at home there?