Title: Building Dreams: Inside Blue Water Design Build
Guests: Kirk Gronvold, Donna Gronvold
Peter: I sat down with Kirk and Donna Gronvold, the husband and wife team behind Bluewater Design Build. They’re a Seattle based design build firm specializing in home renovations and remodels, and they’ve been doing this, together since 2007. Kirk has been in the, renovation business, most of his life, and his family has been in the homebuilding business for over one hundred years in the Seattle area.
Peter: Welcome to the Biz and Life Done Well podcast, where we explore what it means and what it takes to do business and life well. I’m your host, Peter Wilson. If you’re like me, you’re intrigued by stories of common people who have achieved uncommon success in business and life. Join me as I interview fascinating people about how they got started, their successes and failures, their habits and routines, and what inspires them.
Peter: Blue Water Design Build, what does the company do?
Kirk: We’re a design build construction company where we turn around and take people’s ideas and dreams of maybe what they want their basement or main floor or addition, what they would like it to live compared to what it currently lives like. And most of the time, what we do is we concentrate on the interior of the home and really more specialize as to how a person lives rather than an architect, which more concentrates on the exterior of the building. We really turn around and concentrate on flow and function.
Peter: Got it. That and it’s residential?
Kirk: Yes. We primarily do residential. We do a lot of renovations and remodeling. We do also build new construction, and we are a general contractor. So we have built a lot of different things over my years.
Right now, we concentrate on whole house remodels of homes that are, say, built back in the fifties or the sixties, or currently, we have several projects for the homes were built in the nineteen twenties. We primarily concentrate on single family homes. Do a lot of older homes in the Ballard Of Seattle area have basements that are unfinished, and it’s unutilized square footage. And a lot of times, we can easily, for a family, double the square footage of the size of their home. Finished square footage is very valuable.
Unfinished is not.
Peter: Where is your company located?
Donna: Crown Hill in the community of Ballard, which, of course, is located within the city limits of Seattle.
Peter: Got it. A a town with a lot of Scandinavian heritage. My family is from there. My both my parents went to Ballard High School. Just little side note there.
Kirk: There you go. I am a third generation builder. My grandfather started in Ballard in 1923 building single family homes. My father branched off in about ‘2 because he kind of he started with his dad, but he didn’t really like building single family homes. So he primarily then, from there on, built apartments in the Ballard area, built a lot of duplexes, triplexes, up to 32 units.
I have done basically all of that, but we really concentrate on single family homes right now. Got it. So There’s been
Donna: a Grondwold building in Ballard for over a hundred years then.
Peter: Yes. That is true. Wow. That is quite a legacy. That’s amazing.
That is amazing. So you’ve the name of the company Blue Water Design Build. What’s the origin of Blue Water? Why Blue Water? I know Ballard is near the water, but I’m just curious.
Kirk: That’s a great one. When Donna and I turned around in back in about 2007, 2008, we kinda branched off from a a family company and then started Bluewater. And we turned around and really looked at it as, like, I love to fish. The Washington Coast, I fished out of Westport all summer long, and the best and the most fun fishing is tuna fishing, which is out about 35, 40 miles or more, and the water is actually blue as blue can be. So that’s where we got blue water.
Peter: That’s great. And then design build. So you see a lot of remodeling companies out there. They just say we’re x y z remodeling. Right?
And you’ve clearly put design build in the name. What was the kind of the thought process behind that?
Donna: I think the catapult behind that was Kirk was finding that client and we were having this issue. Clients would be having an architect draw up all these plans, and then they bring it to us to build it. And then they’ve realized their architect built them something they could never afford to build. And so that’s what really drove the path for us to create design build. So it’s all keeping the client’s budget in mind with what they want versus what they can afford.
Peter: I like that.
Donna: And we’re still finding that in some recent visits, client visits we’ve had. It’s still, you know, a standard occurrence where, somebody will feel like they need to have an architect draw it up first. And we’ll sit down. We did with a nice couple a few weeks ago, and the architect had drawn something that wasn’t really the best use of space. It didn’t really function the way that they thought it would.
We went round and round with showing them other opportunities that they would have of if we move this here, she loves to garden and, you know, have the kitchen sink overlooking the backyard instead of looking at the neighbor’s house up the side of the home. And just to be able to point out to them how we can design their home to function the way that they want it to. And we really spend a lot of time with each couple learning more about them and about, like, how many people cook in your kitchen at one time. How much do you have going on in your kitchen or your living room? Sometimes laundries are the biggest concern of the home.
Do they need a double washer dryer? They have a large family where they never thought if I have two washers and two dryers, I can really get my laundry done. We really do a deep dive on our clients, before we even start the design process with them.
Kirk: As Donna said, it puts the design, the budget, the contractor, and the owner all in a, ultimately, a triangle. Right? So Mhmm. You end up that way, then no matter which decision is being made, design choice wise that the budget and or the construction means and methods are gonna meet the budget. Like Donna says, the challenge ends up as most architects, they’re concentrating on the outside of the house, not necessarily how how the house flows and functions.
And what we try to concentrate more on is how the house flows and functions and how a person lives. So the architects don’t necessarily ask those types of questions. Like Donna says, how many people cook in the kitchen at the same time?
Peter: Right.
Kirk: Because that turned around really determines the size of your kitchen. But on the other hand, an architect will turn around and they love to to spec out appliances and or amenities features, that type of deal that are extremely expensive because they’re really cool. But they don’t turn around and constantly, every decision asked, does that meet budget? And then if it does not meet budget, to make certain that the client understands that now they’re exceeding the budget because of that choice. Whereas when we’re design and the build all in one underneath one roof, ultimately, we’re constantly asking that question.
And then a lot of times it can be somebody really wants this nice tile that’s $55 a square foot. We can help a value engineer that to find you something that’s similar, but more within your bucket.
Donna: Or we can use like we’ve done before, we use it as an accent. So they still get it, but we’re not buying 85 square feet of it. So there’s a way that we can work with design to try to make the budget and the aesthetic all fall in line together with what the client is looking for.
Peter: Got it. So if you were to look at the sort of percentage of work that you do for the various aspects, Like, just roughly speaking, what percent of your work do you think is, like, kitchen or kitchen plus other stuff versus basement? Like, how do you break it down in terms of?
Donna: I would say the majority of our work is full renovations.
Peter: Okay.
Kirk: Yeah. What the challenge to a lot of basements is most older homes, the basement was not necessarily looked at full functioning space. So the stairs are very steep and narrow Mhmm. In order to get up or down the stairs. When a person is re going to finish their basement, there there’s kinda the first thing as to how are we gonna get the stairs to code to get down there and really functioning safe.
Donna: Inevitably, that’s gonna affect the main floor. If we’re having to move the stairs, something gonna have to happen upstairs.
Kirk: So we had a project out in the shoreline area where it was a brick house, really super nice couple. We just finished the project literally, like, last week, and that was the problem. They turned around in an unfinished basement. They turned around and had a great space down there. It was doubling the size of their house if they could finish all of that space.
Always really were able to get them a master bedroom downstairs with a door out onto a private patio, a master bath with a, I’d say, six foot shower stall. And then they have it. They put a wet bar down in there with a kegerator and all kinds of fun Beverages. Yeah. Fun stuff there.
They were gonna put in the TV area. But the challenge was when we actually laid it out, the stairs to get down there, we did several different configurations. But what it ended up is we had to eat into the upstairs area to be able to move the stairs back, which then affected, in their case, the kitchen, the bedroom, the bedroom closet, the dining room to kind of to be able to make this all work. By finishing the lower floor, yes, we did have, in their particular case, some creep into the upper floor. Yes.
They got a brand new kitchen at the same time.
Peter: Got it.
Kirk: That’s now they have legal stairs to be able to get down. They doubled the square footage of their house, and overall value was well in excess of what the cost of remodeling.
Peter: That’s yeah. I can understand that. But then the flip side of that is they ended up with a an amazing house. Right? That they’ll Absolutely.
Donna: Probably. Functions a lot better for them. In fact, we were looking back at the before pictures, and it’s just crazy the difference now that they used to have, like, all their spirits and wine and stuff kinda shoved in this one corner of the house, and now they have a full bar downstairs.
Peter: Nice.
Donna: And they have a full TV room. Their bedroom’s quite large. So they their house functions much better for them.
Kirk: Now they’re able to take one of their existing bedrooms and put it as a work from home office.
Donna: So now she doesn’t have to work from the dining room. Yes.
Peter: That would be a problem. Yeah. So you’ve got the design. I think I’m starting to understand kind of your design philosophy. It’s really focused on how the space is being used, not how it’s gonna look in a magazine.
Donna: Right.
Peter: But I mean, obviously Yeah. We want
Donna: it to function.
Kirk: Another example is another client device we we just met yesterday, literally, and and it was a a Ballard home. And they turned around and had a partially finished basement back in this was a nineteen fifties remodel. And in this particular case, they just remodeled and kinda enclosed the fireplace downstairs. They put carpet down there, put a bunch of doors, and that type of deal to isolate the area. They’re trying to keep it warm and heated.
And so we went there, and they had a bathroom where the shower was a concrete floor with the floor drain, and it had an old galvanized pipe, and the toilet was similar condition. And so they turned around and said, boy, we’d like a better bathroom, and we’d like a nicer laundry room, and we’d like this unfinished space to become a finished space. And so what they were turning around and they didn’t they were looking at isolated areas rather than the entire area. Okay. And that’s what we find a lot is people have done these little piecemeal remodels over the years, over the last thirty years, and they added this little room on and they added this little room on.
But you’re back to the function of the house. Flow. And the flow, yes, don’t work anymore because nobody looked at the big picture. And the and the as we were explaining this to this guy, he was totally blown away. And it’s most people turn I never thought about that.
Donna: They were just thinking about just trying to fix these little areas, key smealing it together. Let’s look at the whole entire area, and how do you wanna use it? And he had they had the perfect setup because they already had egress to have a bedroom down there. So they could add this was a two bedroom house, and, you know, three bedrooms is really best. Two bedrooms is a little bit hard to sell.
Three bedrooms is much better. So we also did some education with them. They were a very young couple, so this most likely was not their first home. We try to educate our clients that although we wanna make this home live for you right now, if this isn’t your forever home, we need to keep resale in mind as well. If we add a bedroom down here, which can also act as your office, and you have a three quarter bath, You have egress.
So now you’ve just added 30 more for your just having a bedroom downstairs.
Peter: Wow.
Donna: And they never really thought about that.
Peter: So when it comes to the design, it sounds like you’ve got a great process in place, and you’ve repeated it over and over again. I’m curious, like, how many homes you think you’ve done in the past several years.
Donna: Oh, wow. There’s a lot. A lot of full homes, full home renovations.
Kirk: Yeah. I do I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been to it’s probably the last, yeah, last ten years, maybe a hundred. Maybe Yeah.
Donna: Probably.
Kirk: Somewhere around in there.
Donna: But Kirk’s been building for his entire life. That’s all he’s done. But our concentration on single family homes, 2007?
Kirk: Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of that too, I always turn around and kinda say, we’re a small, big company. And the difference between our company and a lot of companies that that probably have done a lot more houses, and I know absolutely they’re larger than us. They do more houses, and our competition is that type of scenario.
However, with us, the difference is we’re a turnaround in there on day one when we’re meeting and greeting you and that we’re there all the way through the project till we actually hand you the keys at the end and do the final walkthrough. We’re not only building your dream home for you, but we’re also building the relationship. We also turn around and have a formal written warranty, which most contractors don’t. Right? We’re there for you.
I mean, the whole thing is referrals and or repeat business. We finished a project up a few months ago that was over in the Northgate area again, where we first off right after COVID came out and remodeled our basement. But was the whole basement remodel. We added a bathroom, two bedrooms, a wet bar, the laundry, did the whole thing. It was bigger for them.
They then had we have two kids now, and it wasn’t big enough. Yeah. So the next remodel for their project was the Main Floor in a second story addition. That’s the whole thing is relationship down the road. We’re we’re here to make certain that your life is great after we’re done.
Peter: That’s a huge testament to the satisfaction if they have you back to do another project because, of course, you hear horror stories you hear horror stories of remodeling that.
Donna: That’s there’s no matter what project is and who the contractor is, there’s always going to be bumps in the road. Surprises. It’s how you work through them.
Kirk: Yep.
Donna: And you don’t walk away from you don’t walk away from the problems, but you just gotta work through it. And that’s not always laughs and giggles all the time. Sometimes there’s really hard conversations about issues with the house that weren’t known before. And, unfortunately, we’re gotta be the bearer of bad news. But we also wanna go into that with this is how we’re gonna work through it, and this is how we’re gonna solve it.
So it’s always nice to go with a solution when you go with a problem.
Peter: So what what do you feel is the hallmark or the what sets you apart with respect to the the actual execution side of things? We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the design side. Mhmm.
Kirk: Yeah. Our crew. We have one of my one of our guys has worked for got he’s working on twenty five years. So longevity, quality control, where everybody knows me. It’s all about quality control because at at the end, we’re not a do it yourself project, and and it shouldn’t look that way.
We turn around and have weeded through subcontractors and got rid of a lot of people we don’t use and would never use again. Most of our subcontractors have been with us for over ten years. So looks the longevity of them. They’re painters or tile colleagues. We try to self perform as much as possible with carpentry demolition.
With us, our foreman is on the spot from day one again till the end. You get his cell phone number and that type of deal. So if you have any questions or anything happens in the middle of the night, you have access to somebody that can do something. Yeah. But I think it’s that personalization.
We also turn around and we really focus on communication. When we’re in the production, we’re turned around as a every Friday update. And I know we hear a lot of people, they say, well, contractors say that. But that’s the thing is we really try to deliver that because that turns around and really stops everybody from wondering what happened. Most companies and most complaints from contractors are, I gave him the money.
He showed up one day, and where is he again? And that’s where I turn around and say, we’re a a small, big company. Right? So we turn around and, yes, we have multiple jobs going. Yes.
We have to shift crews all the way through. We’re able to then shift back and then keep in our time frame for every project that we are currently running. So it’s ebbs and flows, like Hannah Donna said. Sometimes it’s everything is great and dandy, and sometimes it’s not.
Peter: Yeah. Is there a peak part of the year, or do you just work year round?
Donna: Year round.
Kirk: Most of our projects, it really doesn’t matter necessarily.
Donna: There’s always a deadline of a baby or Christmas. Yes.
Kirk: Very true. Most of our projects, when we’re into the whole house and generally speaking, we’re disrupting people so much so that’s basically, in most cases, you have to move out. And so if your person moves out, then we are gangbusters. And some of our subcontractors in the way that we function, we work Saturdays and Sundays. Oh,
Donna: some of the con some of the subs do. Yeah. Correct.
Peter: Yeah. And the
Kirk: reason is our crew is working Monday through Friday, so then they subcontractors, as a example, a painter. Right? Right. And come in there on a Saturday. Yep.
And there’s nobody there. I mean, Saturday and Sunday. He’s happy. We’re happy. It’s a matter of that flow.
Peter: Yeah. Sounds like you got it down to a science. How do you do you have any special tools or methodologies for keeping track of all this stuff? Seems like a lot of details.
Kirk: Spreadsheets. Yes. We count calendars. We turn around and use some apps. When apps build their trend, it’s a scheduling app all the way through.
And
Donna: We do we have an incredible project manager, and she can keep every ball juggling. She is a great juggler. She can keep every moving work. She has wonderful communication with our foremans, with our clients, with Kirk and I, but she is definitely magic in our company.
Peter: That’s great. Yeah. I’m just curious about a few projects, a few favorites. I’m sure you’ve got a couple favorites projects. I mean, they’re all favorite, I’m sure.
But with respect to ones that were memorable, so are there a couple projects that kinda stand out in your memory as, like, a a favorite?
Kirk: Yeah. One of them was the I I think I’ll start with the basement remodel where we came back and eventually did the Main Floor and the second story of admission. And the basement wasn’t they were a younger couple, and and they had Hudson was just a he was just a like a toddler all the way through. And they lived on the Main Floor, and we did this basement remodel. And and so the basement was we converted the garage into more of a family room with a wet bar.
We took two different areas and created two bedrooms downstairs with a full bath because they turned around and when their parents came in, the in laws came in, then they had a place to stay that they could come down. They had their own bath and a little privacy.
Peter: Yeah.
Kirk: All the way through.
Donna: Proper laundry room.
Kirk: Yep. A really nice laundry room because Amber knew that she was going to be doing a lot of flows, I think. And so then they ended up they had another baby, became small again.
Donna: And The main floor didn’t function at all. It just it did not work at all.
Kirk: It was a lot of small rooms, lots of doors. Right? Not really a very well, you know, flow. There was no flow. Right.
And so, what they really wanted, they wanted two they wanted a main floor master now, and then they wanted the two bedrooms upstairs for the two kids. Right? So that they could put them upstairs because they didn’t really want to put the two kids downstairs in the basement. And that’s pretty common for most people. Hence, when we did it, it kinda it did, kind of creep all the way through because of logistics of it.
So in order to get the upstairs, yes, we can try and do that, but then you’re back to the stairs to get upstairs. You’re back to the flow of various things and remodeling the entire main floor. It was really fun. The the lower floor was really fun because it was we came to a wet bar and then they enjoyed it for probably a year and a half or so. And then they were back knocking.
Donna: About three years.
Kirk: Yeah. So then it was really fun to be able to do. And which so why it was in the front? Greek one because they were so happy when they moved in at the end. We would get pictures of Emmy, the one their one daughter since a year and a half, two years, saw hanging off of the quartz countertop edge in her her little chair there eating cookies, and she was just happy as could be.
They’re in their new house. No. They ended up they sent this videos of the two kids up in each one of their bedrooms jumping up and down and doing somersaults before they moved the beds in.
Donna: And Yeah. Hudson made us a sign, but they got back from vacation, and he made a really big sign on the window that said, thank you, Blue Water, for our house. And and they’ve just been a really sweet family that that we still keep in touch with. And then I think our other favorite project was over here on Sunset Hill. It was our client had grown up in the house, and that was her family home.
And beautiful home right on the bluff, but it didn’t the aesthetic wasn’t her vibe. The house did not flow for the family. It kinda had a few funky remodels throughout the years that really didn’t make sense.
Kirk: And a really interesting portal in the the master bathroom. Yeah. Big round portal out of a ship.
Donna: Yeah. It was but taking her design aesthetic, what she wanted, she was really easy to work with. She knew what she wanted and totally did the entire house, basement, all the way up, a full redesign from the Main Floor, the Second Floor. It was a long one, though.
Kirk: That one was about a year. It was very complex because of wanting to try to open up older homes to a open floor plan, turned around and and was a a lot of reframing and headers and because we were taking out a lot of load bearing walls. Yeah. So it was very complex on the logistics of the project to be able to open these areas up as much as she wanted. And so that was not only the between the the Ground Floor and the main floor, but also between the main Floor and the upper Floor.
It was three floors of home. And so it was really fun because design wise, it gave us a lot of opportunities that not everybody really does on their homes. This one had in the master shower. It was a lighted niche in the shower. So Wow.
LED lights. So we’re soaking up there, and it’s like it lights up. And it was like
Donna: You body sprays. You have rain heads. You have handhelds. You have walnut. I mean, there’s a lot of water going on in the shower.
Peter: Hopefully, they have the water pressure to support it.
Donna: Yes. Yeah. But they were a delightful family. They have a very young family. Once again, that was another one.
The baby’s coming. And then it was baby number two. But a really nice family. And it’s nice. That’s the house that she’s gonna raise her kids in now.
So there’s a and her grandma just lives two houses down. So it really meant a lot for her to be able to have this house for her family.
Kirk: It was fun too because Ray, the the husband, he liked to play golf. We they had a detached garage that we remodeled the detached garage kind of into in in what was it?
Donna: Golf studio.
Kirk: A golf studio with a garage door, roll up garage door that opened up into the backyard. So now it’s a big kind of party backyard party area. Full wet bar inside of there. And inside of it was a golf simulator on one end of the screen. It was 16 foot high ceilings till you could swim your golf club.
It was I mean, it was really nice. The beautiful backyard landscape wise all the way through. And interesting enough, it’s another client who didn’t really think of that, but we’re currently back there. Now we’re going to demolish the detached garage in the golf studio and build a dadu. It’s basically an apartment above for her brother that stays here quite often for long periods of time.
Donna: So we’ll still put the golf studio back in, but we’ll be having the dadu above.
Peter: Sounds like I need to have you guys come over and build me a golf studio.
Donna: I’ll send you some pictures when
Peter: Yeah. I’d love to see that.
Donna: We build it again.
Peter: Clearly, you have a amazing passion for what you do. What do you guys do in your free time at do you have any free time?
Kirk: Oh, yeah. We have some here. We are I I love the boat, and we love to fish. We have a boat here on the West Coast that we turn around. We go up into the San Juan Islands.
For us in the July 4, I’ve probably been at Roach Harbor in the San Juan Islands for the July 4 for, I don’t know, about forty years or so. Okay. It’s great because it’s the family comes up. We go up, and we do a lot of crap. We grab right before the July 4.
I mean, kids are all coming up and that type of deal. So then we’ll just grab in the Deception Pass area to go from there to the July 4. I spend a lot of the nice summer. I take our boat down to Westport and then go salmon fishing and albacore tuna fishing on the weekends during the summer. Yeah.
Now we like to travel, a lot in various places. We like to go to the down to Florida like everybody else in the warm weather. I think warm weather is really nice for us up here in the Northwest, especially during about January. There is. Yeah.
But you just talked about the passion. Our passion is really I mean, it is building and design work, and it’s kinda funny because Jonah does watch HGTV shows, and we both sit back and say, how did they do that so fast? And that costs way more than that. That’s the I think our passion you’re right. Our passion is this.
I think the best thing for me is darn, I can speak on my own. But when we take this old piece of crappy house and let it it’s just falling apart and disrepair and can turn around and breathe new life into that. Right? So it’s a house that has already been fifty years. Think of how many generations have gone through.
And then if we can rebuild that for the next fifty years and how many generations will go through it again, then that’s pretty nice.
Donna: Yeah. It’s like Gloria and Raj.
Kirk: Yeah. It’s pretty nice at the end that you see these people back in there and their lights are on and we’re living their life.
Peter: How about you, Donna? Anything you wanna add?
Donna: Oh, jeez. Well, I like to read. I like to we pretty much enjoy the same things, and it is really nice to give a family a new start on a new home that works for them. It’s it’s very rewarding.
Peter: Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. And the thing that kinda goes unsaid here is the fact that you two are together at work and play. So Mhmm.
That’s you’ve managed to do that very well. I think it’s amazing testament that you guys have done that.
Kirk: So We
Donna: kinda have our part. I have a lot of the dreaming, and Kirk is my reality check. Yeah. You can’t do that. It’s a nice idea, but it’s not in the budget.
Kirk: I think not
Donna: in the budget.
Kirk: How are gonna pay for
Donna: this? Yeah.
Peter: How are we gonna pay
Kirk: for this?
Donna: I don’t know, but it would look really great.
Peter: But if somebody is interested in meeting with you, you have bluewaterdesignbuild.com as your website. Is there, like, an initial consultation that you offer?
Donna: Usually, what we do is we start with a a quick five or ten minute phone chat to gather details about what they’re one, where the project is located at. We mostly work in Seattle and North Seattle, Edmonds, Bothell, North Seattle area. Sure. But we’ll start with an initial chat to gather information about what they’re thinking of doing or or what they need, to have done. Then we’ll set up an on-site, consult with either, you know, myself or Kirk and I, depending on what the scope of work is, meeting with, you know, both the clients and seeing the project itself.
And then it’s kind of a great way for them to interview us and us to interview them so that we can see if we would be, you know, good to work with together, if we’re gonna connect well. And then from there, they usually think about it, think about the ideas that we’ve given them, what they really wanna do, and then we’ll move into, if they wanna move forward, we’ll move into putting together some budgeting numbers for them.
Peter: Got it. Great. So bluewaterdesignbuild.com. I know we’re adding some galleries to the site here shortly as well. So Yep.
Folks can get a little taste of your work now, and very soon there will be even more on there. I wanna thank you both for joining me today. This has been a good great conversation. Yeah.
Donna: It’s been fun.
Peter: And I think you all really can provide some great services for people in the area. So thanks again.
Donna: Yes. Thank you for having us.
Peter: For listening to this episode of Biz and Life Done Well with Peter Wilson. You can subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and most of the other popular podcast platforms. Please tell your friends about us and leave us a review so even more people will find out about us. Thanks again. We’ll see you soon.
