Building their own house is the dream

Building her own house is the inspiration of one Masterton women ? and she's learning how to do it at a UCOL carpentry course that started this year.
Linnie Hutchison, a mother of two boys, got frustrated when she wanted to do her own renovations but didn't know how ? she's now partway through a year-long pre-employment carpentry course, the first of its kind at level four offered at Wairarapa's UCOL, and wants to someday use her skills to construct her own house.
"That's my intention anyway, is to be able to build a house for me and my two children," she said.
In regards to renovations she finds it frustrating when she knows what she wants to do but doesn't know how ? and that's a sentiment echoed by her other female classmate, Debbie Jaquiery, of Carterton.
Mrs Jaquiery said she was enticed to train for carpentry when she helped out a friend who was doing some work on his house.
"I turned my hand to building ? I thought I'd really enjoy it and I have," she said.
The two women have been doing work experience for two separate builders, Mrs Jaquiery with Carterton-based firm Boyce Builders and Ms Hutchison for Styleline Homes, in Masterton.
Working in what has traditionally been a male-dominated industry either does not faze them and Ms Hutchison said she hopes that they hadn't been given the easy jobs because they are women.
"We've got to kind of push ourselves even harder, but it's rewarding because we've created something that we've (previously) sat back and wanted to do but didn't know how?"
Mrs Jaquiery agrees: "Yeah, it's good seeing the progress."
The course was started up with an aim to ease the building industry skills shortage.
Two classrooms were this year converted into a workshop at Masterton's UCOL campus for course participants, and Juken New Zealand Limited supplied the plywood for the benches.
Construction lecturer Bevan Hussey said the 18 students, who have just completed their four-week work placement, range from age 17 to mid-40s, and the course aims to gain them apprenticeships in the industry.
It's about attitude, he said.
"You have to want to learn and want to be in the industry to get a job and 99.999 per cent of those with the right attitude will get jobs."