With zero renovation experience, joining House Rules might not seem like the obvious choice for professional surfers and sisters Mikaela and Eliza.
But the dynamic duo are doing it all for one person – their mum!
“Mum has given so much to us financially and emotionally,” Mikaela tells New Idea.
“We have never been able to really repay Mum for any of the things that she’s been able to do for us. All of the support that she’s given me, and the same with Eliza.
“I feel like it’s high time, and we had an opportunity to repay the favour.”
In order to do that, Mikaela and Eliza will be renovating the family home for their hardworking mum, Kristen, 55, to give her a fresh start after her divorce from their father.
Set on a beautiful one-acre block on the Margaret River, the house is in much need of repair.
“Eliza and I were at the house one day and we might have been watching the last season of House Rules, and Eliza mentioned to Mum, ‘Oh, how cool would it be if Mikaela and I entered House Rules? And we managed to get this house renovated and wipe the slate clean and give it a brand new face?'” reveals Mikaela.
“Mum was like, ‘Oh, that would be amazing.'”
“I don’t think she really thought that it would ever happen though,” adds Eliza.
But it did, and the sisters were definitely out of their element.
“We were both so clueless. We had honestly no experience whatsoever,” says Eliza.
“I feel like we kind of just jumped off the deep end and thought, ‘Yeah, we’ll be able to do this.’”
Although, going on the show wasn’t always easy for the sisters who had to swap their surfboards for hard hats.
“House Rules is amazing,” says Mikaela.
“But it didn’t stop me from having FOMO [fear of missing out] from competing and just being in the water.”
Both Mikaela and Eliza have been surfing professionally since they were 9 and are ranked in the top 100 female surfers in the world.
The girl’s credit all their success to their mum.
“She definitely invested a lot of time in our early career, and sacrificed a lot,” says Eliza.
“Mum was really the backbone of making sure we were able to follow our dreams and to see Mum walk into the house … it was incredible.”
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