Max and his crew turned my dank basement with old ratty carpet, bland guest room, and large unfinished storage room into a comfortable homey basement suite. I found Greener Concepts at Houzz because I was looking for contractors who installed cork floors, and was pleased to find someone specializing in greener choices in general.
I appreciated that Greener Concepts already had a good number of reviews here at Houzz as my husband and housemate had heard tales of scams and theft in the wild wacky world of Portland home renovations. (Could it be this was the busiest summer ever for contractors building ADUs in Portland? I think so.) I was grateful Max could, as he said, squeeze me in between other larger jobs, and that the largest down payment check I had ever personally written was going to a trustworthy company.
The first thing Max told me is that people like him because he actually responds to phone and text. This is true. I had already discovered some contractors just don't reply. We collaborated on the design. He hadn't heard of a kitchen with laundry before, though quickly helped design where the laundry would go as well as the large farm style sink I had already bought.
The first task was to trench new plumbing through the room from the bathroom. Once they got started they found more trenching was needed, and that what was finished in the basement, a bathroom, hadn't been permitted by the previous owners. The idiosyncrasies of permit processes in Portland can be weird, and Max handled it, including knowing what the inspectors want and drawing up plans he mentioned would have cost a lot more from an architect, spending many extra hours in lines, and finding the wink/nudge magic steps that got our permit passed. If I'd had to handle that, it would have been stressful, unnerving, and confusing.
As I was getting to know my new space and my future needs, our design evolved. We agreed tile rather than cork at the back doors would better survive our wet winters, I chose some tiles other than what Max recommended (not square). However, even with his reservation, he did a fantastic job laying the tile, and did his best to crunch the numbers so these changes wouldn't wind up costing me more.
Together we found a large set of cabinets at the Rebuilding Center, which gave me the opportunity to have cabinets in every room rather than just the laundry/kitchenette. A talented painter of Max's made the cabinets look fantastic, and like new. My monster size sink called for a custom-made cabinet to fit it and the space, and the crew he hired for that did a great job. For the counter in the family room, they even used a scrap counter piece from my beloved Zen Center (the meditation hall with kitchen was being completed as my renovations were happening). For the rest of the counters, Max found some for me to choose from that would match in quality but not be too expensive.
In the unfinished room, the previous owners' DIY duct work was large and soft-sided, and Max's crew changed it out for smaller conventional metal ducts, thus creating more reasonably small soffits. During the work one of these was missed under the stairs where I wanted my cat litter box room...I knew that would be clawed to pieces. I think since it was unconventional it kind of got missed, but when I asked about it Max fixed it and finished the human entry to the little room quite nicely. He had me get a pet door at the hardware store, which works quite nicely tucked under the low part of the stairs with cat entry from the family room. I'm pretty sure my cats love their room with large uncovered litter box after their previous home's little covered box behind the bathroom door. I too love it for ease of care-taking, and the smells and litter debris tucked away from living areas.
I am so happy with how my basement turned out. Max and his crew were enthusiastic about my design choices, and steered me in safer design directions when needed. The original unfinished storage room had an odd window looking out to the garage, near some low-hanging duct work located under the furnace upstairs and near the house water intake. The idea of a closet constructed around the problem area evolved into a storage room, and then someone in the crew had the idea of putting in a door from the garage, replacing the odd service window. Perfect. I love this storage room. Who knew I would love a storage room? It also makes my bonus room so much better, creating a kind of hallway from the original door from the garage and adjoining the cat litter box room.
Max clearly likes to create good design, and if he wasn't sure about my choices, he let me know, and if I insisted, he followed through with what I wanted and made it look good. If I had questions he didn't know the answer to, he researched or found the expert and came back with an answer. He came back after the job was finished for some small missed details, and to repair a floor tile that had come loose. One of the final details, tile back-splash, turned out wonderfully, and he surprised me with additional tile back-splashes at all the non-sink counters. Not needed but a sweet detail.
Because of the added work, and the slightly more expensive counters I chose for durability, the final cost was a little more than the original bid, and I was fine with that.
Because of the unexpected plumbing trenching and permit oddities, the job did take longer than originally projected. I expected that, but then it again took longer than the revised estimate and longer than I originally told him it simply had to be done by. It wasn't clear to me why it dragged on that much longer, so better communication about delays would have been welcome. Better communication about what days workers would be there would have also been helpful. However, this is minor. Max and his crew were really good at communicating just what they were doing to my space and why, and what work was just done and how to use it, if instruction was needed.
I needed to move in before the laundry/kitchenette was quite finished and this caused hardship for me and affected the health of my cats. This is why I give 4 stars instead of 5. Overall I enjoyed working with Max and his crew. I greatly appreciated their excellent worksmanship, their respectful and friendly communication, and their creativity and collaboration in designing a space.