Four years after tackling their first renovation project in Newcastle, sisters Maddy and Charlotte are facing their biggest challenge yet.
The Sydney-raised, Newcastle-based duo joined The Block (filmed on Phillip Island in Victoria) earlier this week following the dramatic departure of fellow contestants, Jesse and Paige, in House 1.
It is the first time in the show's 21-year history that two new contestants have joined the competition midway through filming.
"We found out on the Monday afternoon and we were on a plane the next day," Charlotte said.
"It was insane."
"We had applied the year before but this was the first time we made it through to the interview process."
Despite being the youngest team to compete on the reality show, Maddy, 24, and Charlotte, 22, are experienced renovators.
However, the sisters were thrown into the deep end when they had just three days to complete a room to present for judging.
"It was so daunting and so overwhelming," said Charlotte, who has a degree in business.
"Everyone was saying, 'The girls have renovation experience', which we do, but we bawled our eyes out every single night in that first week.
"Our experience was renovating a little miner's cottage with the same budget spent on a kitchen at The Block.
"We worked on our first renovation for two years and kept it simple with white walls because we didn't want to polarise buyers, and wanted to make a return on our investment.
"So while it was helpful that we were familiar with trades and building lingo, at the same time we didn't have that much of an advantage because The Block tends to come down to styling if you want to win a room.
"Styling is not part of our natural skill set, so we felt like absolute fish out of water."
Picking up where the previous team left off also proved challenging for the sisters.
"Jesse and Paige did a beautiful job but when we saw the room initially it was clear their style was very different from ours," Maddy said.
"That was probably our biggest challenge, especially in the first week.
"How do you create a home that feels like your own but, at the same time, is not completely different from the other four completed rooms?
"We had to try to incorporate elements of their style but also make it more our own which is modern coastal rather than colonial."
From Newcastle to The Block
Raised in Sydney's Northern Beaches, Maddy and Charlotte purchased their first house in a suburb on the outskirts of Newcastle in 2020 after saving enough for a deposit by working odd jobs, babysitting, tutoring and taking on shifts at McDonald's.
The old miner's cottage required extensive renovations, much of which the pair took on board before the property was subdivided and sold.
"Throughout high school and university, we saved up as much as we could for a house deposit but the Sydney market was way outside our affordability, so when we were 19 and 21 we bought our first little cottage in Newcastle," said Maddy, who works in finance and accounting.
"We have family that lives in Newcastle and we spent quite a lot of time there over the years, so it felt like the right place to buy our first home."
The sisters now have three more projects in the works in Newcastle, with more to come while juggling odd jobs and working in the family business.
The long-term goal is to renovate and develop property full-time.
"Charlotte was studying full-time when we bought our first house and I was working in accounting full-time, so we would work on the house in the afternoons, weekends or in the evening, so that took us two years," Maddy said.
"When we sold that one, we bought another one and the dream is to be able to do property full-time, but while we are still financing loans, we need constant cash flow and have done a whole lot of odd jobs to help pay the bills."
