Article: Tools To Task
The Story Of How It Unfolded
This House Of The Year Awards Achievement Has Placed Mitchell Builders In A Category of Winners
Just a couple of months ago, Mitchell Builders took home two major awards in the 2011 Registered Master Builders House of the Year Competition. The first, being the gold award in the ‘Residential New Homes $1 Million - $2 Million’ section, and second , the ‘Local Category Award’ of this particular section. Even though this achievement received much media attention both locally as well as nationally, as a reminder to those that missed it, we are referring to the award winning home built for Paul and Sue Balchin in Tutukaka. The beautiful cliff-top sanctuary designed by Bruce Elton Design is of supreme build quality. Through the combined team-effort displayed by Bruce Elton, Gascoigne Interior Design and Mitchell Builders, a multi award winning project has been realised.
PP spoke to John Mitchell, local owner and operator of Mitchell Builders-Whangarei, who shared with us some interesting information of how it all came about.
John says: “While being recognised as one of the longest members of Master Builders in the north, and having been approached multiple times over the years to enter Mitchell Builders in the annual House of the Year Awards, we never have taken the opportunity until this year. After consistently receiving the vote of confidence from clients and Master Builders’ representatives over years gone by, this year we thought we would be ready to rise to the challenge and see how Mitchell Builders’ standard of quality would stand up against the rest of the country.”
“We entered the Balchin’s holiday home in Tutukaka into the Auckland region competition for the ‘Residential New Homes $1 Million - $2 Million’ category. (Refer to map for zoneing) The achieved result in winning the gold award took us all by surprise. After all, this had meant that we, alongside four other gold award winners (out of a total eight that had entered in this category), had scored 90% or more in order to achieve this. To top it off, we also won the ‘Overall Category
Award’, which placed us into the National House
of the Year 2011 competition. And gob-smacked as we were, off to the nationals we went, us and our nerves that is.”
The National House of the Year Awards is massive and takes the local award winners to a completely new level of the competition. There are 100 entries in this competition, 12 entries in the same category as Mitchell Builders’ Tutukaka property. As a building company, you are now up against the rest of the countries ‘Residential New Homes $1 Million - $2 Million’ category in fighting for that ultimate recognition.
John enthusiastically adds:”With entering this competition we achieved a Reserve gold. WOW! This is amazing. Just stop and think for a moment, our local building company from Whangarei has achieved this outstanding result against the rest of the country. It is just mind-blowing. I cannot stress enough to say how good it feels when all your hard work is finally recognised, and judged by others, especially at such a high level. This has established Mitchell Builders as the leading, best builders in the north. This, not only us as builders, but also all the sub trades and suppliers we use to create any house, addition or renovation we build. It is a great feeling for all those out there looking to build in the New Year. For the same price as any other builders, they can choose to have the best. The best is right on their back door step.”
Registered Master Builders 2011 House of the year and RMB commercial Project Awards In Association with Placemakers
Mitchell Builders Limited 115 Tutukaka Block Road, Tutukaka (New Homes $1 million- $2 million, AK-9-3741
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