BWH Design

Bonnie was personable and she told us how she had also raised a family in such a home, in addition to her years working with clients on old, small homes. A year later we have lost nearly $10k to her and her associates with no gain. This is a detailed account of the kinds of things to expect from Bonnie. The warning signs were there early but we wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But she is aloof, not detail-oriented, and oblivious to current costs of renovations. This is the first remodel we've been through. If you're in the same situation, the advice everyone will give you is that you have to be upfront about your budget. This should guide the design of your house. If you expect that guidance from Bonnie, you will be sorely disappointed. We have no idea how much different things cost but we expected that experienced architects and contractors should have good ideas. Every house is different so they won't be able to nail down a cost for you in the beginning based on an idea, but we figured she'd be able to ballpark what a given design she was drawing would cost. However, while she indicated it was important to know our budget, she essentially just drew what she thought we'd like. We’d told her the reason for the remodel was to get 2 bedrooms upstairs - we currently have 1 - but that 3 would be great. We weren't sure what this would take but we were explicit that our budget was most important so if all that was possible was 2 bedrooms upstairs, that would have to work. We also indicated that our ground floor space was non-ideal so if there was room in our budget, perhaps bumping out our house to create more ground floor space would be something to do along with the upper level addition. These were our terms: a budget in the $100k range that we could stretch to $150k max; at least 2 bedrooms upstairs; a 3rd bedroom upstairs or extra common ground floor space would be an optional bonus depending on budget. She drew a few designs and we thought there was promise with at least one option. However, a few things struck us as odd and frustrating from these first sessions. She drew one design that had a bumped out ground floor space and no new bedroom - not upstairs, not downstairs. At $90/hr she (hand) drew us a design that was useless to us. She said she knew we wanted some ground floor space so she wanted to see what we thought of that. Like we just wanted space somewhere and hadn't explicitly stated the whole reason we were hiring an architect was to create bedroom space. I note the hand-drawing aspect of it because I have since been told by an engineer that that is one reason our charges from her ended up so high ("who hand-draws things these days?"). She may have a similar rate as other architects but you might want to ask how potential architects for you generate drawings. This first set also demonstrated her obliviousness to the cost of remodeling. One design involved blowing off the roof and making a full second story and that was appealing. Could we really do that within our budget? How exciting! When I spoke to one of Bonnie’s contractors about it, knowing our budget he scoffed. He said that design would start at $280k. So again, we paid $90/hr for that. Bonnie next sketched an idea that she said she did without charging us, perhaps because the first set was a bust. It's this one that we ended up refining and going forward with. We talked to her recommended contractors and a few others. We did have a few that said it could be around $150k but Bonnie's top guy, the one she pushes a lot is named ZB (CCB 151140). Bonnie emphasizes that he works fast and can really stretch a dollar. He came over and gave the standard line that he can't really give the most accurate number til he gets engineering plans but he was very confident that it'd be ~$100k, "maybe less!" In hindsight I feel like she was funneling us to ZB. One of the strange things I heard from her that I later learned was not true was that we should really narrow down who we'd like to work with early because it takes them about 40 hrs to prepare a bid and we don't want to be paying 3 or 4 contractors for 40 hrs of work each, right? So basically she was encouraging us to pick one based on feel for personality and what they tell us in preliminary meetings (where her guy is saying "$100k, maybe less!"). At one point, I liked this other guy and I asked him, if we'd like to get a detailed bid what's was his rate. He was taken aback. He said "If a contractor tells you they're going to charge you to give a bid, shut the door on them. That's part of our overhead." When I brought this to Bonnie's attention she insisted that some contractors do charge for bids but admitted neither of her two she recommended do. So why was she telling us we need to pick one early rather than give plans out to a few different contractors? She'd already provided two guys that don't charge! But she also noted it'd be nice to pick one early and save them having to do all that work preparing a bid for nothing. I'm sorry, that's part of their job. Anyhow, ZB and Bonnie gave us confidence we could afford this plan so we decided to go forward and have engineering plans done. This involves the architect passing plans to a structural engineer - for us it amounted to another ~$2000. You'd really like to feel good that you're going to do this plan if you're moving on to engineering. As we prepared to do this, Bonnie did voice a concern that engineering might drive up costs. So I asked her what was the worst-case scenario. I asked her directly "could that cripple our plans? Are we talking tens of thousands?" In her response she actually said "not tens of thousands" in unexpected costs. That was a relief, ZB was saying $100k and we had an absolute max of $150k. What's the concern? Still, I brought ZB back and she joined us for a meeting. He reiterated what he thought the cost could be but said he can't really calculate it til he gets engineering plans. I told him we had wiggle room, we just can't have you be something like 100% off in your ballpark. He assured me not, Bonnie had said engineering could add some cost but "not tens of thousands." We decided to move forward. When engineering was completed we passed those plans on to ZB and awaited his bid. It arrived as 3 pages listing materials and a single dollar figure at the bottom (no itemized costs): $182,950. When he said "$100k maybe less" - he was essentially 100% off! This understandably crushed us. I diplomatically expressed my frustration with Bonnie via email, as she had emailed me before we got the bid saying ZB was now thinking $150-200k. In that email she stated that he was working on a project "very similar to the work necessary on your job" and was concerned ours would fall into the $150-200k range. Now he was concerned? She also stated "pretty typical in your scenario." Again, now this comes out? She did not respond to my concerned email for weeks and didn't answer my calls. She had been very responsive to this point. Suddenly after we're in this far and get blindsided she disappeared because I told her this was not cool. I didn't berate her or anything. I just asked how this could happen and how we could remedy the situation. Finally when she spoke with me, she expressed sympathy and regret for the situation and offered to work on a remedy at a reduced rate. We were so far in with her this seemed like the most reasonable idea. However, after that conversation she put no creative energy into our project but would offer to sketch ideas I came up with. She answered her phone infrequently and responded to emails with even less promptness. I was polite during this effort to fix things and at her mercy to help come up with a better solution. But she seemed fixed on the idea that we demanded 3 bedrooms upstairs and that she had come up with the most reasonable way to accomplish that. But we had never demanded 3 upstairs, we'd said that would be amazing but we just needed 2. She didn't offer a solution based on these original parameters. On multiple occasions during later communications she expressed sympathy for ZB, noting he had worked **** ** his bid and that he was disappointed he didn't get our (nonexistent) job. And her discounted rate came with severely discounted effort. We finally decided to cut the cord. Before we cut ties I also spoke to one of her engineer colleagues - not the one that drew our plans. He stated bluntly that there was "no f*#$ing way that unforeseen engineering added $80k to your plans. That doesn't happen." His assessment was that ZB carelessly provided a low ballpark early on. To me, with her many years of experience perhaps that should have been suspiciously low to Bonnie. However, he also said designers/architects often don't pay attention to costs, just think about how things look. He said Bonnie is guiltier of this than most. So that's an assessment from her own colleague. Some of these things were small nuisances that we initially overlooked but if you view them all cumulatively, you can get a good picture of our experience. I could have been much more forgiving if she had made a stronger effort to remedy our situation - for example, I have seen some architects have a policy that if they design something that is over budget they will work for free to come up with a new plan. She just said she'd fix it at a discounted rate but then she put little effort into doing so, made it painfully clear we were a low priority, and left us no choice but to cut ties. We are currently out almost $10k and have made no progress a year after hiring Bonnie. Her negligence and incompetence in handling our project and her unwillingness to make right amount to theft in my opinion. I am currently exploring options for recourse. I don't know that there is anything we can do to recoup costs but it won't be for lack of trying.

Bonnie understands space well and is creative as she puts together options to choose from. She took time to listen to our needs based on our life style. She helped us improve space utilization with very simple ideas- she has really good space ideas and gives you several options to choose from. The space use/flow is SO much improved- so much more usable and looks GREAT. She had great ideas. She never pushed her ideas or views but did share them. A time or two we chose differently and yet she was supportive and continued to give great ideas and help us make decisions. We really enjoyed working with Bonnie and would definitely do so again. She recommended a great contractor who we also enjoyed working with. Bonnie is very professional and personable. We highly recommend Bonnie.

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Bonnie was great, very friendly, enthusiastic and competent. She came to our home to meet with us several times, and also stayed in touch by phone and email. Her estimates for her own fees and the overall project costs were realistic. We felt she listened to what we wanted and tried to address our concerns. She also gave us a realistic idea of what to expect from the contractor and the city permitting process. We basically had very good experiences with the contractor she introduced us to; he did good work for much less than we expected, though there was some inattention to detail and some communication problems. (Obviously those problems were not caused by Bonnie.) We chose her after talking with a few other designers who were professional, but not friendly or enthusiastic about the project, and promised to charge a lot more. We're very happy with how our project turned out.

Bonnie was very helpful, she came on time, and was accomodating to our schedule when setting up appointments. We met and reviewed the space and she pointed out a number of things that I had not thought about. She gave some good ideas for the space. She gave us good timelines and met them. She was even able to reduce our cost by taking our permit application in with some other jobs that she was working on. The drawings were well done and we had our building permit issued with no issues. I will use BWH again in the future.

Bonnie was very personable, and followed up with images of similar work to our project. She seemed very capable but was not a good fit for us as we wanted computer rather than hand drawings.

Bonnie is great to work with. Listens to your needs, is creative, tells you issues that may come up and works thru pros and cons.

The quote was for $80 an hour. She was great. She was very nice. She was punctual. She did send a follow up letter to us and also made a phone call. We are still deciding but eventually we will use her.

As we stand in my new kitchen and take in all the changes in our home we are awestruck- it feels as though it was always meant to be this way. It has become the "heart of our home". The features that made us attracted to this home and property still remain but are enhanced by the new, improved spaces. It is perfect for our family. Our 7 year old stated that she was so glad Bonnie made room "to dance in our kitchen". Our entire home feels like it has retained its character and warmth but the space is so much more efficient and family friendly. Every angle, every window placemen, every molding, feels very purposeful and as it should be. Bonnie has incredible attention to detail. We feel as though we could fill this page singing praises to Bonnie, she truly has a gift. She is warm, energetic and unimaginably creative. You will not be disappointed with BWH DESIGN!

Overall, it went very well. Bonnie is very easy to work with and personable. She listens carefully to our wants and concerns and works diligently to let us know what is possible (or practical) and what isn't. Our 1925 bungalow presented her with a variety of design challenges. Although it is a great house to work with, there are limits to what can be done to it, owing to its current construction and our target budget. Bonnie did a great job of considering multiple possibilities and presenting them to us to help us arrive at the best balance between what we wished for and what would be affordable. She explained carefully how the different options would impact the living space, and how it would feel to live with them. One thing in particular I liked about her was her ability to work with our general contractor to do a bit of design work so we could get rough estimates, then decide whether or not to proceed. As we spent more money on her design and engineering work, we were able to get more accurate estimates from the general contractor, which helped us to decide our ultimate course of action. As it turns out, we decided to execute on the outdoor portion of Bonnie's design first: the auxiliary structure that serves as a studio. Bonnie's design harmonizes beautifully with the house. It looks like a carriage house garage, like it has always been there. We're keeping Bonnie's design for the house remodel and saving up so we can execute on it without having to cut too many corners. In the meantime, we have a beautiful yard to enjoy, that is structured to anticipate the eventual changes we'll make to the house. We really enjoy working with Bonnie.

For my personal house remodel in 2007 I contacted bwh design and Bonnie came over for a conference. My business partner and I explained what we had in mind and she made some useful suggestions. She did all the drawings, ran them past her engineer, and supplied them to us with enough copies that we could give the building departments their own copies. We built the addition to specs and it turned out beautifully. In the 8 years we've been using bwh design we've never had a problem with her work.

See above.

We had a very good experience with her, and we are happy with the results of her work.

It went extremely well. Bonnie did an outstanding job.

We were very pleased. The design services helped produce a floor plan that we are very pleased with at a reasonable cost. City of Portland plan review approved on the first pass and were quite complimentary. No surprises or changes during construction.

We have a 1500 sf home built in 1910. At one time a space of approx. 5ft deep, across the width of the house, was added at the back to accommodate a small laundry, 1/2 bath, & storage. We were looking for designs to add another 7 ft to create a more livable space and to achieve: a laundry/mudroom, full bath, and sunroom. We spoke with several designers and felt immediately comfortable with Bonnie, who our contractor recommended. Bonnie has the perfect mix of creative vision and building know-how. She listened to our ideas,added thoughts of her own and, on the initial drawing, came very close to what became our final plan. Bonnie is very thorough and very familiar with the permitting process as well. We went to the City ourselves for the permit and it went off without a hitch. They loved the detail of her(and her engineer's) work. Getting a permit, so easily was the final clinch in knowing we had chosen the right person. Bonnie is incredibly detailed, creative and full of energy.

Bonnie, a residential designer, was a pleasure to work with! She transformed our cramped 1500 sq. foot, 1980 ranch home into our family's 2500 sq. foot dream home. She puts her heart and soul into designing a space that truly supports the individual people that will live in it. She has an artistic background, and I feel she is gifted in spacial design. I have everything I wanted and love our newly remodeled home!