What are you doing this weekend?

We are busy around here, that’s for sure!  It’s not sewing or crafting, but I am even more excited to have a real backyard soon!

We got the first half of the retaining wall blocks for the back yard yesterday with the other 8 pallets coming next week!  This picture has only 3 of the 16 pallets and 135 of the 720 total blocks in it!    Those piles of sand are also only a fraction of what came out… our yard is 70′ long & the hill started at the top going out about 4′ before a steep slope down to the rock wall. Hubby dug it ALL out by hand with a shovel!!!  He did about 30′ last summer & the rest this spring.  The sand piles you see are just from the last 2 days as he was prepping for the wall.

I can’t dig for beans so I have been very little help physically, but I have been doing what I can which includes getting him drinks & food when ever he will let me.  Hopefully I will be able to help with actually laying the wall a little bit.

I also wanted to share some info about checking prices & buying local!  We found these blocks at Home Depot for around $2.97 a block.  They aren’t cheap, but aren’t bad looking (we got the khaki color) and are easy to do on your own.  There would have also been a $200 delivery fee because they can only fit 8 pallets on one truck so it would take two deliveries.

So when we ordered our new windows last week from a smaller local lumber yard we asked for a quote on the same blocks.  Not only were they actually a few cents cheaper, but their delivery fees were only $75 a trip instead of $100.  Also since we were closer by they were willing to cut the delivery fees in half!  SO buying locally we saved $151.50 on the exact same product and we hat WAY better service and got the product fast.  Shows that buying at the small local company can pay off & helps them keep locals employed and uses less fuel for deliveries which is better for the environment. Also many local companies will try & price match places like Home Depot & Lowes if you ask.  2 years ago we got a brand new Maytag HE washer & dryer set and the local appliance company actually priced matched Lowes sale price!  It’s worth shopping around & asking.

As you can see we still have a ton of work to do, but it’s starting to look like a yard finally! So this is what we will be doing all weekend & next.  What are you doing this weekend?