Slipforming, part 18 – The Bogart Home
Posted November 21st, 2011 byCategories: Slip Form House posts, Uncategorized
This post follows Slipforming, part 17 – Turret’s Syndrome. To see a complete index of slipforming posts, click here. For an index of comical posts, click here.
Ken Bogart, who lives in New York, was inspired to build a slip-formed stone home and has graciously agreed to be guest interviewed for this blog. Following is an informal interview with Mr. Bogart. He promises he will start his own web page for those who want to explore more possibilities with rock homes. Thank you, Ken, for sharing your story here. When his website becomes active, I will happily provide a link to it.
Dani: How did you decide to build a slip-formed home?
Ken: I saw your house on Tom’s (Elpel) web page. My wife thought the idea was crazy until I showed her your story, and your home, and then she was all for it. She even bought me the cement mixer for Christmas and said “Go for it.”
Dani: Wow! Only a fellow stone home builder can appreciate a gift like that! So, what size is your home and how long did it take you?
Ken: It took me two summers to complete my 32′ x 48′ house. I worked my full time job during the week, and built mainly on weekends. Usually the weeknights were spent gathering stones.
Dani: That is fast! Especially since you were working full time, too.
Ken: It seemed to have taken forever! How long did it take you to build your house? Your house is so much bigger than mine, it should have taken longer to build. I love the looks of your house. Those turrets are beautiful, and it really sets it apart from anything out there. You went up one-and-a-half stories with stone. What were you thinking! When I got up to the first story I had gone up far enough for stonework.
Dani: (Laughing) My dad told a friend that I would get smart after laying a couple feet of rock. He suspected I would realize rocks are heavy and quit. After we were setting rocks 14 feet above the ground, dad maintained I never did get smart. That said, I was not holding a full-time job at the time, as you were. My rock work was done in two seasons, but I did run the “seasons” long—from April to November.
Ken: Mine was two summers of laying stones. The first summer didn’t go very well and I got frustrated with the process. The stones weren’t right, the concrete oozed out, it was kind of disheartening. After thinking about it over the winter and reading and researching and thinking of different ways to make it better the second summer went great. I very much enjoyed it, and would do it again, and I may someday on a smaller scale.
Dani: Did you have any help on this project? Read the rest of this post »

My husband was diagnosed with brain cancer this summer. July 7, 2011 to be exact. It’s tough to be funny when one gets news like this. In the interest of keeping this blog column upbeat, I want to offer some insight into one of the highlights of this discovery.
I’m calling this chapter “Turret’s syndrome” not because I intend to mis-spell and discuss Tourette’s Syndrome, which, for those who do not know, is an affliction that often results in someone blurting out profanities at inopportune times. Instead, I intend to share some ideas on turrets, which are those cone shaped roof toppers that adorn some homes and government buildings. Frankly, they cause the same symptoms…profanity. For Tourette sufferers, there is medication and therapy. For turret sufferers, no remedy exists, aside from ditching the idea of adding a cone-shaped roof topper to one’s home, or profanely gritting one’s teeth through it.
Of course, I’m speaking of Heidi. In the last column I mentioned that she had shown up with a new boyfriend who got initiated to our clan by way of Ken’s chicken pen…er…cathedral. Jayde, as I must now call him—instead of buggar, eraser head and hey you—is a great guy. Just the kind of prospect we had hoped to pester through a Bible-length torrent of “boyfriend-break-in-pranks.”
I repeatedly mention that my husband is from Denver. It explains his innocence and gullibility and his resistance to accepting my core Redneck values.