Wednesday, November 14, 2012

The hearth rock

When Dad built his house up the road, he came across a big boulder that had nice color and good striations. Chris had a rock chisel and a 5lb sledge, so I grabbed both and gave that boulder a good whacking. Off slid a near perfect slab that I designated my hearth rock. It sat on the side of our road for three years and it's now about to go into the new house. Cue the inspirational music of choice!

The triumphant ride up the road

Big rock!
Now, to move the rock into the house, you first park the tractor as close to the wall as possible. Bonus points for once again parking it on the porch. Double bonus points for keeping it from rolling off the porch edge since the tractor is longer than the porch.

Back tire hanging over porch edge
Then you use Dad's $30 Home Depot dolly and a few 2x6's to carefully position the rock for removal from the bucket.

No pictures of the transition from bucket to dolly as I was busy helping. But we got it done surprisingly easily and no fingers or toes were crushed, the walls were not hit, and the dolly actually held the weight.

Sliding...

Rolling...

More sliding...

There!
We were all amazed at how smoothly this transition went. It all just worked. So we have the rock in the house and it will be centered on that wall later in the process. For now we kept it to the side to keep it out of the way. This is going to look so cool and it's great that it's actually from the property.
Not positioned yet
Note that Chris liked this so much that he bought me more rock chiseling / shaping tools. I see stone work in my future.

2 comments:

  1. That is going to look soooo good!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Kim! Plus you're my first commenter. How fun!

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