At our local Home Depot there is a little thing Meg and I call "The Dollar Wood Bin." For those of you who aren't familiar with this blessed concept, it's all of the Depot's scrap and warped wood on the real cheap*. If you have a truck or a trailer (which we may get tomorrow) it's always a good idea to see what they've got in the bin just to stock up for future use. We like to raid the bin anytime we have a major project in the works. Some of our projects born of dollar wood are the chicken coop, the grow tables, and the rain harvester.
We've got two dollar wood projects currently in the drafting process. One is a shiny new addition to the chicken coop. We're hoping to add two new ladies to the brood this spring and the current housing would be a bit snug for five. The second project is also chicken related. As I mentioned in a post two days ago, we're going to put the birds to work in the garden before we plant. After they are finished we will set them out in the yard in a mobile pen. The reason they need to be in the rolling cage, as opposed to full free-range, is quite simple: our neighbor hates chickens and our chickens love to mess with her. We think it's funny, but our neighbor, being the shit she is, does not.
*We always recommend trying to salvage whatever scraps of wood that may be left over from past projects, but sometimes you need four foot boards and all the scrap pile's got is three footers.
31 January 2008
Dollar Wood
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
We bought our house from a carpenter, and he left behind a big pile of scrap lumber, (and carloads of crap elsewhere) and boy does that scrap pile make me happy. I love the HD feature of getting your wood cut there for a small fee. A panel cutter is so much safer than cutting plywood at home with a circular saw.
Have fun with your projects!
I always check out the scrap bin - that's where I get most of the wood that I use for my art projects. It's a great idea ...
I like using wood to build things in the garden, it's hard to get more environmentally friendly. It's only when you start using treated wood or paint that things start getting a little toxic.
Eventually whatever you build will start falling apart, but by then you can sometimes just add it to the compost.
There are some lumber mills near me, so I can often get cheap wood chips or pieces of wood to use for plant markers (like in the picture of my garlic bed I posted a few days ago).
Ali, Your House came with its own scrap pile!? That's a bigger selling point than a firplace.
I agree with your fondness of HD's cut-on-site option. It also makes for easier transporting.
Kate, To be quite honest, I didn't even know about dollar wood until Meg and I started gardening. Now we check it out every time we go to the Depot.
Patrick, Lumber is nice when one can get it. Our property has a very established bamboo patch that we raid quite often.
That is a fantastic idea...i end up sticking all the stuff i don't use in the wood burner, but i now need to find a decent store of 'pound wood!' Would that be almost twice as long then on the current exchange rate?!
Vegmonkey, I don't know, aren't trees still pretty scarce over there? ;)
I didn't know about this! Thanks for the tip!
Yeah i suppose so
Post a Comment