Some of you may be wondering (or not) what happened with this studio project...well, TBH, I'm kinda wondering too!
Actually...the project is still active, though I haven't done much inside the studio because as I mentioned 3 weeks ago, I was dealing with the outside around the new construction, since the original excavation and grading was just a rough job, and I really needed to get down to some actual landscaping and the building of rock walls.
As I mentioned a couple of posts back, either I couldn't get anyone or the people I did get wanted crazy money to do basic regarding and moving of stones...which I knew would end up with me still having to do a lot of the finish work.
So...I took on the project myself...rented some earth moving equipment...and got to work.
These first two pictures kinda show how messy it was after the construction...and there was a lot to be done to make it presentable.
The large boulders were delivered by the guy who did the original excavation for the construction...he only charged me $100 for the load.
This is the equipment I rented...the small skid steer I had for a whole week, but the excavator was mine for only one 8-hour day, though I was able to split that across the weekend, and managed to use it to move some earth and prep the ground for the rock walls, and also to place the several huge boulders at the corners to anchor the wall yet to be constructed. I was thinking to keep the excavator for one more day, but it wasn't cheap, and all I would end up using it for on the second day was to move the smaller boulders...which really weren't all that "small"...but they were workable.
So instead I opted to do them by hand and muscle, and with the help of a regular little hand-truck, which allowed me to scoop/move the bigger rocks from point to point without carrying them or rolling them...but I still had to lift them up into position, or drop them down.
There was a lot of grunting...and I managed to pinch a couple of fingers when a couple of the bigger rocks rolled on me as I was placing them...but nothing real serious...just pain and bruises.
This is what was left that I had to move by hand...plus another pile around the corner for the second wall.
Besides the grading and the building of the rock walls...I also took advantaged of having the small skid steer for a whole week to put down fresh driveway stone...but it's a big driveway, and it actually has another leg that circles around...so that alone took a couple of days.
This is the finished grading, landscaping...and the two rock walls...but that pile under the white tarp that you can just barely see in the last picture, is 10 yards of screened dirt-n-mulc, that I still have that to spread out down in the area below the bigger rock wall, and then some grass seed and some straw...and finally the yard will be done...apart from some planting of a few shrubs that I may get to later on, maybe in the fall.
So I hope at some point this week to finally get back to working inside the studio, and moving audio gear in there slowly. I've got a nice second drum kit that I'm looking at...a smaller Gretsch 5-piece...because I decided it would be nice to have two drum kits, set up differently...rather than just the one kit.
If the Gretsch thing falls through...I'll just break up my huge Pearl kit into two smaller ones, and still do the two kits...but that story is for the next couple of chapters, boys and girls.