| 93 Building a solid reputation Cathedral ceilings and multiple skylights give a sense of spaciousness with tons of natural light. BUILDING KJ Building T T Virginia Wright “l got stuck in and did the whole thing in six months from start to finish and it sold really well.” Aluminium Joinery by Fairview Concepts I N F O @ F A I R V I E W C O N C E P T S . C O . N Z Magpie Sca olding is a proud sponsor of KJ Building Ltd Servicing Central Otago and the Southern Lakes admin@otagoelectrical.co.nz Hugo Adams : 027 451 0197 Proud to support KJ Building After qualifying as a carpenter in 2009 in Southland, Kris Dyer spent the next three years working for a building company before moving to Cromwell to help his older brother build their parents’ house. When that was finished, Kris went to Australia, where he spent several years working on a variety of building projects. Returning home for a visit, Kris met his future wife, Ashlie, and they decided to settle in Cromwell and start up KJ Building together. As Kris’s reputation for doing quality work with precision grew, so did the size of the projects. He has been a licensed building practitioner since 2019, with a steady stream of work building bespoke homes, renovations, sheds and housing-company builds from a mix of word-of-mouth referrals and return clients. He and Ashlie have bought some land on the river between Cromwell and Bannockburn, where Kris has built a shed and a studio. They live there with their two boys, Albie (5) and Freddie (2), and the tiny home he also built is useful for when Ashlie’s parents visit from Scotland. With their sights set on building themselves a true family home, Kris decided to put the money they had saved towards a 668sqm section in The Wooing Tree Estate, build a spec house and have more money available for when it came to their own build. “l got stuck in and did the whole thing in six months from start to finish and it sold really well,” says Kris. The 150sqm four-bedroom house with a single garage has two bathrooms with fully tiled floors and showers, and a separate toilet designed and built as a feature in itself. Cathedral ceilings and multiple skylights give a sense of spaciousness with tons of natural light. An open-plan kitchen-living area makes the most of the available space, and everything meets the design criteria, including the materials that must be used for a house to be approved for construction in the Wooing Tree Estate. With the current economic climate, and noting that a number of new builds were on the market for quite some time in the Wooing Tree, they set a realistic figure and sold within 10 days. “We negotiated and settled for a price we were really happy with, given the current market. It takes the pressure off for when we can get on with our own build,” says Kris. Ashlie does the books for KJ Building and keeps everything running smoothly behind the scenes for Kris and the two other qualified builders who make up the team, with a possible apprentice coming on board.. Kris and his brother Bob help each other out if either of them need extra hours, and he has other contractors to call on if required. After five years, Kris works only with the team of subbies he knows from experience he can trust to do a good job and get on with clients. They still do the occasional housing-group build if there’s a gap in the schedule but, with a 290sqm architectural build in Lowburn and a two-gable pavilion house in Cromwell’s Gair Estate coming up, it might be a while before Kris gets to build the new home he and Ashlie have planned for their land beside the Kawarau river.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=