Well, it happened! We did it! Yesterday the rocks "magically" moved to my house. Last week I went to my friends house and Farmer Ed used his loader to pull the rocks from the woodsline. I was worried because I thought he had a farm tractor, but it was a heavy duty loader and it treated the boulders like they were bowling balls. Once he got them all out of the hedgerow, there were a few more than I thought - 26! Probably 5 or 6 BIG (bathtub sized) 12 Medium (32 inch TV) and the rest Small (microwave sized). Seeing how easily he handled these rocks was very reassuring, so I made arrangements for the loader, truck driver, and unloader for the following week. The weather was terrible here all week. We had a tremendous windstorm with gusts up to 65 mph that uprooted a few of my newly planted trees. Then we had a very heavy rainstorm. Then a spell of our first "winter weather" - 40 degrees, crisp, biting wind. But Saturday dawned warm and sunny and still, a great day for moving rocks. Farmer Ed and his son both arrived with loaders. For some of the big rocks, one loader would push the boulders into the other loader. You could see that the smaller one would not have been able to lift the heaviest of the rocks. They were quite skilled at what they did, I took my four year old son to watch and he loved it. Mike the truck driver was great. Acted as if he did this every week. He said he had hauled some very unusual things in his time, and raw boulders was another on the list. He took longer to tie everything down than it took to load. He was very thorough and professional. Made a phone call as we were leaving so Dick the backhoe driver would be there when we arrived. Dick and Brian were waiting when we arrived. Just immediately drove up in the backhoe and started tugging them off and they rolled away. It was slow and steady work, but happily was done without incident. Just like that! Wow! Now we still have the work of moving them from behind the barn to be placed in the backyard, but that seems a lot more doable than having them magically move 30 miles south. With the fall rain we've had the ground is rather soft for heavy equipment. We'll move them next summer. So watch for another post then asking how to move them into position. But for now I am quite happy! I'm sure enquiring minds want to know, how much did it all cost? Things improved from my initial conservative estimates. The $150/hour was for a quarry loader, which we didn't need because the farmer's loader was one of those BIGGGG ones. Farmer Ed did me a huge favor and did all the loading for $150 plus various baked goods and bottles of wine. Really he was being nice to my friend who owns// owned the rocks. Truck driver Mike was very professional and very reasonable, I thought, for $250 since it took his entire afternoon. Dick would only take $100 for his work since "it didn't take him very long" and he lives just around the corner. So total transport cost was $500 for 25 very nice sized granite rocks. $500 isn't a small sum of money, we've just blown the landscape budget for 2006, but at $20 rock it seems fantastic to me when I think how much work was done. I'm still working on getting a very nice something for my friend too, who was so fabulously generous with her stones. What a long winded post, as you can tell, I'm excited. Here's some photos, I've never done photos before so we'll see how they work.

You'd have to have another grout line on the depth. Just something else to consider (as if you don't have enough!). This is a problem with the 12x12's as well. If you look at the pic I posted up above, you'll see how I solved that problem. I "hid" the piece out front in plain sight. Instead of having the sliver in the back, I made 3" bullnose pieces as a "trim" accent to go all the way around the countertop. it works out well. They are very small. I butted each tile against the other and didn't use spacers. On the part of the counter that I use the most, the grout is always oily looking and wipes out after a few months of cleaning. I have to re-grout that section a couple of times a year. THANK YOU. Those of you who've been here a couple of years and seen me go through the arguments with people about why a small grout joint is needed, and that you can't butt the tiles together, this is the reason why. (or atleast the biggest of the several reasons)

I put Blue Eyes in the kitchen and have cheap Chinese granite countertops on my bathroom vanities, so there is granite everywhere in my home now. I personally do not like Corian or its competitors either. It looks "bathroomy" to me, I don't know why, LOL. About slamming things onto the granite and breakage, I had vitreous porcelain tile on all the countertops in my house previous to all the remodeling. That stuff is so hard! None of the 30-y.o. ugly-ass tiles were cracked or chipped. But if there was no such thing as granite countertops, I would put new tile in before I would do man-made solid-surfaces. Besides, the Blue Eyes granite and many other granites are gorgeous - full of semi-precious stone inclusions. It's my kitchen bling, my mesmerizing Precioussss. I stare at it all the time. Another forum member, JessyF has the blue macaubas like bluekitchobssessed. I spent an afternoon there this week canning fig jam with her - boy is that a gorgeous stone. So why not get a utilitarian piece of art for yourself as you are remodeling? That's the way I looked at it.

Building an A-frame is probably your best bet but it takes up a lot of space. I would consider building a wooden slatted box for the granite to sit in . I would wrap the granite in moving blankets and strap the box tightly to the side of the truck with moving straps. A piece of foam between the granite and the side of the truck for cushioning. Important: the granite needs to ride upright on its edges - do not ride it flat. It needs to be well cushioned and not move. As far as the cabinets go, wrap them in moving blankets and you should be perfectly okay. They should all ride upright also (not on their sides). Make sure they are secured in a way that prevents them from moving around I don't think it would be a problem to stack light boxes on top of the cabinets. Make sure you rent an air ride truck. This post was edited by jerzeegirl on Wed, Dec 31, 14 at 16:41