BOGMAN DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION

We enjoyed working with Bogman Design & Construction on our backyard cottage. Adrain designed the cottage and had many innovative ideas throughout to keep our project as green as possible, and to keep costs down. He encouraged my interest in working on some of the time and labor intensive tasks myself in order to save money. He was patient and encouraging in teaching me some new skills. Some of the fun repurposed materials in our cottage include bleachers from Ballard High School as interior walls, reclaimed beams in the framing, and old doors as insulation. We are so thankful to have a beautiful, bright, warm office to work in just steps away from our noisy home.

# Work Done * New concrete floor * New window * New plumbing, sewer line * New sconces, lighting * Hydronic heating in floor and ceiling * Double-sized walk-in concrete shower with dual shower head * Customized existing dresser for sink vanity * New toilet * Laundry chute (covered in greater detail in future review) * Closet for washer/dryer # How It Went Our new bathroom turned out beautifully. It was done as part of a larger basement remodel, reviewed separately. It's not so much a bathroom remodel as building a new bathroom from whole cloth. The new bathroom's primary feature is a beautiful walk-in shower with dual overhead shower heads and a heated bench. The shower is massive in size, fitting two occupants with plenty of room to spare. The shower heads can be individually turned on and off. The vanity is built from my wife's childhood dresser, where the drawers have been cleverly modified to allow the plumbing to pass through the back while the drawers remain fully functional. Adrian added a custom concrete countertop to protect the original wood and to make it more appropriate for a bathroom. The sink is a glass bowl that has been inset into the concrete top, along with a classic faucet set that Adrian got cheap because it was a display model. The bathroom itself is heated using in-floor hydronic heating that was installed as part of our overall basement remodel. This heating runs through the concrete floor and ceiling, including the shower bench, giving the bathroom an even, comfortable heat even on a cold Seattle winter day. The bathroom also doubles as a laundry room, with the washer/dryer in a closet that is separated by double sliding doors we found on Craigslist. At my wife's request, Adrian installed her antique baby crib on the wall as a shelving unit to hold all the laundry goods. It's a unique touch that is indicative of the kind of creativity and reuse that is Adrian's hallmark. The kids' favorite feature is that the new laundry chute terminates in the laundry room. The laundry chute used to be a chimney that was used to allow the basement's furnace exhaust to exit out the roof. The furnace is gone, replaced by a hydronic heating system powered by a tankless water heater. So the chimney was torn down and the remaining conduit space was repurposed as a laundry chute that has now become the centerpiece of our upstairs kitchen. The bathroom is finished off with lovely sconce lighting and beautiful trim work throughout. Despite the laundry room, the whole experience is somewhat spa-like. It makes our main-floor bathroom feel a little underwhelming in comparison. We couldn't be happier with it.

# Work Done * Demo'd previous basement (incl removing furnace, water heater, ducts, knob-and-tube electrical) * Dug out slab and ~18" of dirt underneath (gaining ~8" of ceiling height in the end) * Lay crushed rock, level with vibration plate * Lay water barrier membrane and insulation * Tie in rebar to the footing and lay rebar for the slab * Install PEX for hydronic heating in floor * New sewer line added, old sewer line terminated * New concrete floor poured * Walls furred out * Insulation in outer walls * Soy-based blow-in (?) insulation in upper half of outer walls * Cut out stem wall in 2 places for new windows * 4 new windows added total * Storage under the stairs added w/custom door * Stairwell trim * New electrical throughout * New plumbing throughout * New PEX for hyrdonic heating in ceiling * water supply lines for laundry and bathroom * New LED-based lighting throughout * In-wall speakers installed * Media center, ethernet, and coax wiring * New gas line and exhaust for the mechanical room * new gas, water supply lines to the second floor for future project * Custom L-shaped corner bench in main room * 2 doors installed for bathroom and office * Custom bookshelf/door to mechanical closet in office * Custom hardwood trim, baseboards throughout # How It Went This has been a project of epic proportions. It all started out as a simple water-proofing endeavor, as our old, partially finished basement was allowing in rainwater in multiple locations. After interviewing several contractors, we chose Adrian because he recommended the best solution to our problem, not (just) the cheapest. We employed for two starter projects: installing a new external french drain and replacing our foundation (also reviewed on this site). Once these projects completed successfully, we immediately hired Adrian to do a full basement remodel, which is just now wrapping up. We are extremely pleased with the end result. We're actually not quite finished with the project; we still need to install a couple thermostats, which may depend on a future project we have with Adrian. But minor touch-ups aside, the finished project is breathtaking to behold, especially considering what we started with. To call this a remodel is a bit of an understatement. The entire basement was gutted, including removing the 2" slab and digging down ~12-18". We removed the water heater, the furnace, all the old knob-and-tube electrical, and the forced-air ducting. It was replaced with updated plumbing, brand new electrical, and a custom hyrdonic heating solution in the poured concrete floor and also in the basement ceiling, providing radiant heating to the main floor. The basement itself was partitioned into 3 rooms: a main room, an office, and a new bathroom (the bathroom itself will be reviewed separately, but suffice it to say it turned out wonderfully). Beyond the "typical" furring out of the walls, new insulation, new windows, new lighting, etc, he built us a custom L-shaped bench in the corner that also doubles as a storage area, currently holding the kids' toys. I know, right? The other half of the main room is the entertainment space, which now features in-wall speakers, jacks for the subwoofer and coax, and a custom-built shelf with built-in electrical outlets. The office also doubles as a guest room, which includes a closet and a custom built book-shelf which is also a hidden door to the mechanical closet. It's truly a wonder to behold. The trim work throughout is exquisite, and matches the style of our craftsman-style home to a T. If you have an eye for detail, you'll see many ingenious little solutions throughout (e.g., specially-ordered hinges to keep the custom-made door flush to the wall). Adrian was a font of creativity from beginning to end, and the end product shows no small amount of his personality and class. Suffice it to say, the final product is indeed water-proof. It's been ~18 months since Adrian began on the basement, and in that time not one drop of outside water has breached the new walls and floors.

# Work Done * Trench dug out around the house * Voids and holes in stem wall filled with sealant * Waterproof membrane paint applied * Root barrier and drain rock laid down in trench and sloped appropriately * Trenched under retaining wall to side of house * Laid down two drain pipes, both starting from the front porch, around outside of the house, terminating to the side of the house * covered pipe with drain rock * covered drain rock with dirt fabric and drainboard * covered drain board with previously-excavated fill dirt * terminated gutter downspouts into new french drain # How It Went This work was part of a much larger basement remodel project, but we had it specced and invoiced separately. Over much of the last decade, we've had issues with water entering the house. It started at a single place along the east wall, but eventually we had several places in our basement where water was seeping through the concrete slab. We had invested in *two* shop vacs, and many a night (the basement would invariably leak in the middle of the night) was spent babysitting the shop vacs as they were positioned at strategic locations in the basement, sucking up the incoming water, and waiting for them to fill so they could be emptied and the process could be started anew. The fall of 2010 and spring of 2011 were particularly wet ones and the flooding especially egregious, and I decided enough was enough. I contact several contractors to get an estimate on internal french drains. Adrian, however, stood out because 1) he talked to us for much longer than any other contractor (Adrian's a talker), and 2) he was the only one to recommend an *external* french drain. His reasoning, which we found to be sound, was that while a bigger project, an external french drain is more effective at keeping water out of the house. An internal french drain, by definition already lets the water in, and this is something we wanted to avoid. Adrian broke ground on Father's Day 2011. An external french drain results in a *lot* of dirt being displaced. Much of it goes back in the trench after all the bedding and pipes are in place, but there's plenty left over that will need a home. In addition, our sewer replacement and basement remodel were also being done concurrently, and both of these projects also produced yards and yards of dirt that needed a new home. In order to help reduce costs, Adrian found someone nearby on Craigslist that was accepting fill dirt for a landscaping project, and we were able to get rid of the leftover dirt with a Handy Andy dump truck rental and a few weekends of work. As for the french drain, Adrian was always sure to keep the work site clearly marked with warning tape, and made sure his crew did all the necessary cleanup at the end of each work day. In the end, the project was finished in about 6-8 weeks and was within his original estimate. It's been about 18 months since the french drain was finished, and I couldn't be more pleased. If you're in Seattle you know we've had a very wet winter, and with each heavy rainfall I see plenty of emergency visits by plumbers in our neighborhood. However, our basement has been completely dry. We even ended up giving one of our shop vacs to Adrian, because we didn't need it anymore!