October 28, 2013

Excess Patio Materials Finally Find a Good Home



Although the new patio has been complete for months, the project hasn't felt finished because the backyard still looked like a construction zone. Of the 3 pallets of Basalite pavers we bought, we used a little more than half. The excess pavers have sat there, and sat there. They have been piled on pallets smack dab in the middle of the yard, irking me. For 6 months they sat there while we passively thought about what to do with them. I am not proud of this. That's the problem with D.I.Y. projects - you can't blame anyone else for taking a long time to clean up the worksite!

I posted the pavers on Facebook to see if any friends would take them - no luck. What lousy friends I must have to not help solve this heavy dilemma (kidding!). I asked my dad - who said he would take them, but I think he was just being polite.

Finally, we got our act together and posted them on craigslist. We figured we would have to negotiate and deal with a bunch of people. We did have a couple of fake-outs early in the week - people who had questions about the pavers, but didn't really want them. Hey, that's ok - such is the way of craigslist and trying to move awkward, heavy objects off your property.

But then the magical offer came in: "Have Trailer and Cash, interested in pavers". A day later, we were helping our customer load the rest of the pavers and sand into his trailer. I'm not sure how he made it home with what was likely over a ton of concrete pavers and sand in the back of a converted truckbed trailer. I remember learning a valuable lesson when towing some of the equipment we used to install the patio: it's not the hauling, it's the stopping of the vehicle in front of a heavy load. I didn't read anything on Lost Coast Outpost about a guy with an overloaded trailor wreaking havoc on the freeway, so all's well that end's well!

And now the grass can finally start growing back. It's a beautiful thing!