John Smith
GoodGround’s New Homes expert, John Smith has been designing and creating since he left school. John started out as a draftsman, ‘cable drafting’ for the New Zealand Post Office, a role that gave him ample opportunity to examine the intricacies of good, simple design.
He left the Post Office in 1973 to join one of New Zealand’s largest house-building companies, and there he gained experience and expertise in equal measure, finally branching out with his own unique, and highly successful house building company in 1989.
More success followed, until the company that John and his business partner had founded boasted seven franchises around New Zealand, and once again John was in the position to try something a little bit different…
Today, John is again at the helm of a new Housing company, Kit Set Homes NZ Limited. Designed to appeal to the Kiwi ‘do-it-yourself’ attitude, Kit Set Homes provide their customers with full plans and all the components for their new house, ready to be built either by the customer themselves, their own builder, or possibly one of the many builders that John can recommend to make the job a little easier.
Kit Set Homes are happy to produce a completely unique plan for their customers, or to provide one ‘off the shelf’ – such freedom is the ethos of their enterprise, and one that John highly recommends himself: “When you build a home you need a house that suits YOU, not your designer – take the time to personalize your living environment, and take control of your project.”
John has seen many fashions come and go during his time as a home designer, and he believes that people are now much more aware of the value of good, sensible, practical design – making full use of the fantastic climate in New Zealand with the ‘indoor outdoor split’.
As well as having over thirty years experience within the living environment industry, John has also supervised four or five new builds for his own family over the years, and has a lot of advice and support to offer those about to under-go their own experience:
The first and most important consideration is the land upon which you intend to build – it’s special characteristics, where the sun rises and sets, the potential that it has to offer – this is why John likes to get involved with his client’s project at this early stage, it pays to get it right! John can achieve this either by visiting a potential purchase with you, or by examining digital photographs by email.
Lifestyle Blockers comprise a huge part of John’s current business – they seem to value the opportunity to do something a little bit different, to utilise New Zealand’s great wealth of natural building materials, and of course to save money!
Recently John has introduced a range of pole and portal timber-framed barns, storage sheds and sleep-outs. In fact this new range has so many uses it would be impossible to list them all!
So, if you have any questions about farm buildings, home building, shed building, building almost anything in fact, then send John an email here at goodGround.com, and he’ll get right back to you. We’ll publish those that we feel will be of general interest to you, our users. (Any reference to specific areas or builds will be removed if appropriate.)
