“Now that was hard,” says Amie, mother to one-year-old Nash and three-year-old Priya, chatting to Woman’s Day from her gorgeous new home in Albury, in south NSW. “I sobbed the whole plane ride from here to Melbourne. I had a tissue and I was blubbering into it – it was terrible.” The sisters barely had time to comprehend they’d been selected for Nine’s renovation reality series when they were whisked away from their families for the elimination challenge. It was a whirlwind few days and emotional for them both.

“Then after the elimination challenge, we had three days to get home, get things sorted, and then it was like, ‘See you in nine weeks,’” says Katrina, 33, who is based in Wagga Wagga, NSW, with her husband Andrew and their three boys, Cruise, 9, Tex, 6, and Chevy, 4. “But, in some ways, that was better, because there wasn’t any time to think about it. We had a few days in that first week wondering how things were going, who was picking who up from school and things like that, and then we just had to move on, because it was go, go, go from that point onwards.”

While the girls were going at a frantic speed on The Block, back home, husbands Andrew and Josh were adopting a more relaxed attitude. “Things certainly weren’t happening the way mums do it,” says Amie, amused by some of the goings-on. “The kids were quite often having chocolate for breakfast and sleeping in Dad’s bed.”

Read more about sisters Katrina Chambers and Amie Godde in this week's Woman's Day, on sale August 1, 2011.