Blasting

Kim and I ventured up to see the site blasting this morning. It's a big job, and a company from Plantsville, CT, Blastech, Inc. is doing the work. First they drill holes.

Then then fill the holes with a combination of Trinitrotoluene (TNT) and Ammonium Nitrate and wire everything together. In this case, the equivalent of about 600 lbs of explosives.

For some reason, Brie seems to think she's going to be left up in the blast area. Smart dog, but it makes me think there is more to her past than I thought.

We took one more picture of of the ledge before it becomes a hole waiting for a basement.

Then they blast. You notice there is no picture or movie of the actual blasting. That's because Wes, Kim and I were talking down at the bottom of the drive-way, when all of the sudden a horn started going off signaling the blast was about to happen. I fumbled with my new iPod with the built in video camera for five seconds only to realize too late, that the little dickens was locked. At least we got to see the blast and come close to getting showered with rocks. Here are a few after shots.

They have two more blasts to do tomorrow. One for the Barn area and another to level an area on the driveway. With luck, Lee is back to work by the weekend and after digging the rock out, he can start the foundation next week.

Kitchen Design Session II with Kelley

My sister Kelley joined me at Home Depot on Saturday to fine tune the kitchen and bath cabinet selections. Kelley was SO excited that we have added a garage to our kitchen! A garage? Yes, a nook with a sliding door to hide our coffee pots. I can hear them sliding in their parking spots now.

Kelley puts everything away in her tidy kitchen, well, not Mya, Greg and the dog.. but practically everything. I'm sure Kelley would like to garage, possibly even tow MANY things currently on our counters. My raisens and almonds still have a place on the counter, although I will clean up my act when I move to a new house :)

We think we got a good deal from Home Depot as they are running a sale thru May 2nd, where the more you spend the more you save. You should have seen the look on Wayne's face as he tried to understand that adding cabinets to the laundry room was going to ... 'save us money'. After a while I felt like Lucy talking to Ricky Ricardo. So basically we are getting the kitchen, laundry room and 2 large bathroom cabinets from Home Depot and chose the Decora brand which have solid wood doors and drawers. For the kitchen we would like the Harmony, Cherry wood, Brandywine stain (www.decoracabinets.com/).

We still have to pick out countertops, but we are pretty sure we want to go with a local cement craftman. Here is a photo of a possible kitchen cabinet handles, nothing earth shattering, but a break from more dirt photos at least. BUT...for those partial to dirt photos - stay tuned for 'blasted dirt' hopefully later this week.


Possible handles:

More pictures of dirt

I met with Wes and Lee today at the site.  They have marked the three or four areas that need blasting and have one of the two estimates in.  If all goes well, the blasting should occur late this week or early next.  Either way, I'll be there to watch and perhaps push the button. 

We've decided to blast for a full basement, which is about 10 feet at the high point.  This will also give us material to use for retaining and stone walls.  While we're blasting, we'll also remove the 'hump' in the driveway we left last fall. 

I'm still not able to envision the house within the area cleared, but it looks like there will be some nice rock outcroppings near the house.  Below are some more pictures of the site.  The next post should include some pre and post blasting shots.

 

More Site Clearing Pictures

The weather finally cleared and the ground dried last week, so Lee and company were back to clearing the land and cleaning over the ledge.  Below are some shots that Wes took.  The next step is to get a couple of companies in to give estimates on the blasting.

Alternatively, I was going to look up an old friend with military contacts and see if we could call in a 'Platoon' like air strike.  If I can't get a hold of him, I'm thinking of renting a U-Haul and heading to North Carolina to stock up on some fireworks and do the job myself.