Well I can’t believe it, but we are FINALLY in a place to finish the driveway and start the landscaping, and get the pile of rocks out of the way! At first we thought they were amazing – that that amount of rock could possibly be dug out of our basement. Then they were charming – a sign of things to come, often asking “what should we do with all these rocks?” But alas, at the one-year mark, we just wanted them MOVED! Here’s some photos of what I’m talking about, from the beginning:

The excavator began digging in April 2017. Once started it actually moved quickly, and was also quite a processes. The Cottage was easy – just digging down a couple of feet and building up the crawlspace to be 5 feet. The Main House was significantly more complicated.  The land drops down from the road to the Main House by about 8 feet . We didn’t want the Main House to dwarfed by the Cottage, so we had to dig down at the front of the house, but then build up at the back. Now I was told if we moved the house to be closer to the road we wouldn’t have these problems. But do you live at the road, and hate how close you are, or do you go deeper into your “Toronto Money” and put your house where you want it to be. Ka-ching!

So we ended up with rocks, lots of rocks…and really big rocks.

The driveway was put in over time. At first a rough road to get the construction trucks in. But the construction continued into January 2018,  so we had to wait until Spring to get things re-started. And as we had a really wet Spring it was just about 3 weeks ago when we got the roughed-in drive laid. But it was still wonderful because for the first time we didn’t have to trudge through mud to get around.

So this week, we started moving the rocks! And by “we” I mean Mike and Mike of Goheen Construction. We had to do the placement based on the stack of rocks. The first one is for the BBQ, so they built up the fill, then placed the stone.

The second stone is for the step up to the Main House. We placed it, then decided it was too high, so the grading had to come down. You can see that once the stone is placed it has to be “tapped” into place. It’s really cool how such a big bucket can gingerly move the stone closer to the porch.

Number 3 went to the Cottage!

The next one was really big! We weren’t sure if it could be moved and this was confirmed when the strap snapped. Now that strap is rated for 12,600 lbs. so that was one big rock! When the strap broke it dropped the rock and it broke in two. Mike used the bucket to shove it over and use it for the garden circle.

Here’s what the circle looks like now. It’s a bit rough, but if you squint you can see the potential!

I’ve been told Goheen has almost finished the grading, driveway and top soil – I promise give an update after the weekend but to make my next post much smaller!