From the family business to award winning homes
Master Builders Awards: Chris Warren wins big
Rockhampton
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rockhampton. Followed categories will be added to My News.
BUILDING homes was always the plan for Chris Warren, but if you had told him when he was 16 and starting his carpentry apprenticeship that he would one day have his own successful company, he would never have believed it, let alone winning awards.
This year, his company won three of Central Queensland's Master Builders' awards - Best Display Home, Best Home Renovation/Remodelling Project between $576,000 - $1million, and Best Commercial Building up to $5million.
With 30 years in the business, and renovating over 20 homes with his wife, Mr Warren has a wealth of experience and knowledge behind him.
He started his carpentry apprenticeship in Mackay at 16 and moved to Bundaberg at 21 where he started a family business with his two brothers, Warren Family Homes.
After 16 years in Bundaberg and continuous travel back and forth to expand the family business, Mr Warren decided to move to Rockhampton in 2010 and form his own company, Chris Warren Homes.
"As Warren Family Homes started to expand, we were working in Rockhampton as well as Bundaberg,” he said
"I had two young kids so I decided that I'd just prefer to move up here.
"I thought business would be better in this region, so I came up here to run my own business.”
In his time in the industry, Mr Warren has learnt that even with his years of experience, the more sets of eyes that look over a house plan, the better designed the home will be.
"I've been designing houses for a long time,” he said.
"I can picture things, but that doesn't mean other people don't have great ideas.
"When we get a preliminary drawing done I will send it off to other people.
"I'll send it to my brothers, my parents, some staff and ask for their input, good, bad, or otherwise and I take on-board what they say.
"At the end of the day you'll end up with a few extra ideas and a really great product.
"No one is the be all and end all. If you don't take other peoples advice, you won't proceed much further.”
For Mr Warren, winning awards wasn't something he was working towards, but he said that as a business grows the recognition from awards can be a good thing.
"It was not something I was too worried about,” he said.
"But once your business gets a little bit larger, people like to see that you do win awards.”
And with no expectations of winning, he entered the company in this years Master Builder awards and was happily surprised to learn the company had won three awards in the Central Queensland division.
"My aim back when I was a young fella was just to get my builders license and build five houses a year,” he said.
"That's all I wanted to do as a starting point.”
Now, all these years later Chris Warren Homes hands over almost 100 homes a year to clients, and he's very happy to have come away with three of Central Queensland's most prestigious building awards.
Originally published as From the family business to award winning homes
What do you think of during an Anzac Day minute’s silence?
Every single one of us will observe the minute’s silence on Friday in our own special way. Inspired by this unique truth, we asked our key columnists, senior writers and editors to share where their minds go during that sacred sixty seconds.
Named: Qld mums in hot water with the law
More than a handful of Queensland mothers have ended up in court over the past 12 months for matters ranging from weapons possion to fraud and drug trafficking. See the list.