FXBG Neighbors Podcast
Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast
FXBG Neighbors Podcast
EP #14 From Sweeping Floors to Leading Northern Virginia's Top Construction Team
Craftsmanship meets community in this enlightening conversation with Steve Buchanan, co-founder and director of B&G Construction, one of Northern Virginia's premier remodeling companies. Steve's journey from sweeping construction site floors to managing complex residential and commercial projects reveals the authentic path of a passionate builder who combined forces with his business partner to create something extraordinary in the Fredericksburg area.
What sets true professionals apart in the construction industry? Steve candidly addresses the misconceptions many homeowners have about general contractors. He explains how proper planning—often unseen but crucial—creates the foundation for successful renovations and new builds. With refreshing honesty, he discusses how the low barrier to entry in construction can lead to varying quality levels among contractors, while emphasizing that one negative experience shouldn't define an entire industry.
Beyond the blueprint and hammer, we discover the person behind the projects. As a father of three young children including twins, Steve balances the demands of entrepreneurship with family life and outdoor pursuits like golf and fishing. His approach to business challenges reveals a systematic methodology for improvement—analyzing setbacks and implementing systems to prevent recurrence. Most compelling is his commitment to remain personally involved in projects despite company growth, positioning B&G Construction not just as service providers but as community resources for anyone with construction questions or career interests. Connect with Steve and his team through their website or by calling their office to experience the difference that expertise, planning, and genuine care can make in your next remodeling project.
Steve Buchanan
B&G Construction LLC
(571) 292-1800
This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast featuring local legends in the Fredericksburg area. Today we have a fantastic neighbor to introduce you to. Steve Buchanan is the co-founder and director of one of the top remodeling companies in the area, B&G Construction. Steve, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:I'm excited for this interview. Before we get started, can you please share with the listeners a little bit about your business and what all you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. We're a general contractor in the Northern Virginia area. We go all over Northern Virginia down to Lake Anna, fredericksburg, all over the area. We do remodeling new construction kitchens, bathrooms, basements, majority residential, but we do do some commercial as well. Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I've seen some of your before and after photos and you do gorgeous work and every time I am on your Facebook page I think of all the projects I need to do around my house because you do such a beautiful job.
Speaker 3:Very appreciated.
Speaker 2:We got a good team because you do such a beautiful job. We appreciate it. We got a good team.
Speaker 3:Awesome. So tell me, how did you get into this? So coming out of high school I didn't really know what I wanted to do, so I went to community college to go to a four-year degree school and then I just got into commercial construction. I started off very cliche, like sweeping floors, very at the bottom, worked my way up over the years, going through school in the evenings and then working during the days, and got into a position where I was kind of getting into more of a management role in the construction industry and I just enjoyed that problem solving aspect of it, the pre-construction planning aspect and managing the people, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:And then at just a certain level I just decided that I wanted to take my own leap and with Anthony, my partner, he was doing kind of landscape construction at the same time I was doing commercial. So we just merged the two into a residential starting construction company and in the early years it was a lot of, you know, just taking on any type of work that we could get and that didn't really specialize because we didn't understand how business really worked at that level. And then, until later on in years we got some traction in the residential construction industry. It kind of just started compounding from there.
Speaker 2:Nice, so smart to kind of take each of your expertise and combine that into one company. So I love, I love your backstory. That's awesome, yeah, so tell me, do you find that there's any you know, myths or misconceptions about your industry?
Speaker 3:I do, I do. I think that there's a lot of a lot of people just assume that general contracting is just outsourcing all the labor and the subcontracting and the GC just gets to kind of sit back and take the credit for the projects at the finish line. But I think what a lot of people don't understand is how much planning goes into some of these larger projects and just the cost of construction, the cost of that management planning in the beginning to do it the correct way. I think that that's a large misconception and I think that some contractors because it's the level of entry is not very difficult I mean, anybody can really get some tools from home depot and start a construction company if they really want to. Um, it's about getting to different levels of of business and I think that the misconception would be that if one bad contractor gives somebody a bad taste in their mouth, then they're all bad, and I just don't particularly agree with that for many reasons obviously. So I would say that those are probably the two misconceptions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, sometimes, you know, one bad experience can ruin it for everyone, and there are good contractors out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So when you're not working hard on your projects, what are you doing for fun?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I have three great kids. I have a five year old named Wilkes he's my oldest and then I had twins two years they just turned two in March. So they take up a lot of our time and my amazing wife, Chrissy she stays home with them and is able to chase them around the house and kind of do the things everyday mom type of stuff. And then I get to hang out with them on the evenings and the weekends as much as possible and then I play golf and fish and do the outdoors as well. So those are the things that I enjoy doing.
Speaker 2:You are very busy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's a busy household for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it when they're little. So can you describe a challenge or a hurdle that you had to overcome and you can now say that you're better for it now that you're on the other side of it?
Speaker 3:Sure, I think that well, obviously the cliche answer is just the ebbs and flows of a business owner and everything that we have to kind of self-teach ourselves and along the way of trying to scale something to doing something great.
Speaker 3:But I'd say more specifically, it's probably just some of the projects that we've maybe taken on the chin a little bit on or made some mistakes that they weren't as profitable as they should have been, or hard lessons that we just had to pretty much learn through the process of growing a construction company, and when to spend money in certain areas, when to spend more time in certain areas, when we do have a problem with a project that's going on, how to make sure that there's a system put in place after that problem happened and it never happens again or it's easy to manage the next time. Those are all the lessons and things that we reflect back on as a company in weekly meetings, monthly meetings, quarterly meetings, year-end meetings, and just try to balance those type of moments when they do happen to be strengths for us in the future. Really.
Speaker 2:You get better every single day.
Speaker 3:We try to. I mean, that's always the goal. It's not as easy. It's easier said than done, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Right. So what do you want the listeners to know about B&G Construction?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. I would say that I would want them to know that when they consider us, say that I would want them to know that when they consider us, the owners are still very much involved in the projects and the sales and the construction projects, even in the senior project management of their projects, and that we really do care and we really are trying to do something great in the community, not just to have a good construction company, but we want to be a part for real estate. We want to be people that people can come to that have questions about construction, that may or may want to try out this field. Just general knowledge to people that are considering doing this as a career or considering doing a project, that may not be ready for that project yet. I'm always open to talking to people, whoever that person might be. My phone number is pretty easy to find it's on Google. So anybody that wants to reach out and talk to me about anything in our industry or anywhere, we can help. I really I'm open to that.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. What is your website? What's the better? Or is the website the best place for people to find you if they want to connect?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say so, I'd go through. We have like an online forum that they can go to. It's wwwbgconstructionllccom. Or they can call our office phone number, which is 571-292-1800. We have an amazing team that will get in touch with them and then delegate those leads to whoever they need to go to, and we'll take it from there.
Speaker 2:Awesome, Steve. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast and for sharing B&G construction with us.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and thank you for everything you've been doing for us. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to fxbgneighborspodcastcom. That's fxbgneighborspodcastcom, or call 540-534-4618.