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.

No strong opinions against or for the Buick Ren..... have I. But it is not right for the manufacturers to supposedly "poorly" build a vehicle as complex and costly as the Rendezvous and then stick it to both the dealer and buyer.. As I have said, primarily, GM must learn to respect.. There is a "Is GM going bankrupt....?" thread on this subject...

oooooh-noooo. I am so sorry you got hit with something like this. I'm sure you must be really frustrated and angry. But, if your builder is building the house according to the plans you approved - and I assume he is since you didn't say he isn't - there really is not much use in blaming him or trying to get him to bear the cost of fixing the problem. Do the plans show steps from the house into the garage? On the plans, how far into the garage do the steps extend? If the plans show fewer steps then, it is possible that your builder poured the garage slab too low in comparison to the house slab - which would make this his problem to fix. But, if the plans show steps extending 5 feet into the parking bay, then you would have known how much space you would have to park in if you had read the plans carefully enough. (It is easy to make such mistakes when you're a novice at reading house plans so I'm not trying to beat you up. Just telling you the facts.) If the mistake is yours, you're going to have to bear the cost of fixing the problem. You can't say that your builder should have known that the garage would be too small for two cars. Since cars come in all sorts of sizes, your builder can't really be held responsible for knowing what size your cars are. Much as you may want to blame him, that is counterproductive at this point. You need to focus NOW on finding a solution you can live with that costs as little as possible to implement. And, the quicker you figure out what your options are, the more of them you're likely to have because the longer you wait, the more "building" is going to be finished and the more it likely to cost to implement whatever solution you can find. Post your garage plans asap as well as some pictures of the garage so we can see what stage everything is at. I'll be very surprised if the folks on this board can't help you find a solution. But, try to get used to the idea that it is probably going to cost you some money to implement a fix. If you sweet-talk your builder instead of antagonizing him by blaming him for something that isn't his fault, he might cut you a good deal on whatever work needs to be done to make the garage useable for you. If he has built according to the plans and you've yelled at him when he wasn't at fault, he'll probably get even by jacking up the price of the labor to do whatever needs to be done to fix the problem. Again, I AM truly sorry you're having to deal with this issue and I do understand your frustration. I do hope you'll post your plans and let the GW community see if we can't help you find a reasonable solution. >>

LOL - I think 18" d/w's were *invented* for NY! As were 24" stoves and refrigerators! (I vaguely considered a 24" stove, but didn't see any with a self-cleaning oven...) (Oh, and abjadulce, I only think the handles of my appliances should match because they'll be in such close proximity to each other... But it's just a personal preference.) Not sure what size d/w would be considered normal in Queens (as opposed to Manhattan, where a high-end 18" like a Miele would be considered routine). I know some apartments in my building have squeezed in 24" by doing full-depth cabinetry on both sides of the kitchen, but I think those kitchens look *terrible* - much too cramped, the window gets partially blocked. The kitchens end up looking much smaller than mine. I will look into alternative appliances - I had no idea d/w's came 23-1/2"! Not sure what that would mean for the cabinet above it - 21" with 2-1/2" filler? It's an idea. Will also look at the Liebherr refrigerators, but I suspect they're *way* out of my price range. (Then again, so is a Miele 18" d/w, so why not spend the money on the fridge instead? Hmmm....) Lascatx, your message made me laugh and laugh!!! 50% more DW per BR indeed!!! Thank you, everyone, for your responses! I can't believe you all *read* my entire message!!