Where do you guys buy hardware.

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Was told Sunday by two 'big box' stores in Corpus Christi that they were out of the N95 masks and probably couldn't find any within 100 miles of Corpus. Went to McCoys Store Locator in Corpus and they had a good supply. Just gotta know where to go.


TBS

No McCoys stores here.

 

[two_bit_score]

No McCoys stores here.

So where do you buy hardware and building materials?

 

[arrow]

So where do you buy hardware and building materials?

This area is saturated with Lowes and Home Depot. I go to my local hardware store and an unfranchised lumber yard. There is also a local sawmill that cuts native lumber which all of my outbuildings are made of.

 

[ning]

I buy most of my stuff at the local hardware. One is an Ace, one is True Value, and both have as good of a hardware selection - typically better - than HD (which happens to be 45 minutes away vs 10 & 12 minutes for the other two), and best yet, I can actually find what I want in minutes. Something about how HD sets their stuff up makes it really tough for me to find what I need...

The Ace place basically gives you a personal shopper as you walk in the door, unless you clearly know exactly what you need and where it is, and they know exactly how to do what you need to do, even if you don't quite know what you're trying to do so they get my buck if I can send it their way - it's worth a lot to me to be in & out quickly with the right stuff for the job, and they don't mind me buying extra and bringing it back months later if I didn't use it.

I detest HD because if you need help finding something, and you're lucky enough to find someone to help, they don't usually know much of anything, and despite being a huge place they have a remarkably limited selection of the things I tend to look for, so I'm pretty hit-or-miss with being able to get what I need at HD. For tractor related stuff, there's a TSC 35min away from me, and I'm afraid for my wallet every time I go in there. Seems nicely set up, I find what I need quickly, prices are good...

 

[ultrarunner]

I sure miss my two independent hardware stores... they really had everything except for lumber/roofing.

Both are no more and sorely missed.

Eames in Pleasant Hill has 77 reviews and nearly all 5 star... super staff, hired lots of local kids that really embraced the owner's philosophy on customer service.

The rent was going up and all things considered the owner decided it was time for a change.

Thing is the store has been vacant ever since... it was not large but carried a depth of product and things the Box Stores didn't have.

Eames Hardware & Supply - CLOSED - 1� Photos & 77 Reviews - Hardware Stores - 2665 Pleasant Hill Rd, Pleasant Hill, CA, United States - Phone Number - Yelp

 

[two_bit_score]

This area is saturated with Lowes and Home Depot. I go to my local hardware store and an unfranchised lumber yard. There is also a local sawmill that cuts native lumber which all of my outbuildings are made of.

Sounds like you have it made! :thumbsup:


TBS

 

[arrow]

Sounds like you have it made! :thumbsup:


TBS

Traveling out west on several occasions, I always marveled at the different chains available for consumers. Only a couple years ago did we get a Costco store in the area in Ma. Krispy Kreme came and went much to my chagrin.

What may be a household name in some areas are simply "a what?" in much of the east. Tractor Supply seems pretty spread out. No such thing as a Menard's or McCoys here.

 

[Oldpath05]

Drifted through most of these post, the main consensus is to go local local local, we'll that's a good thing to go local but I can't go local, everything that is open when I get home from work is 30 mi. away, so I do the next best thing, ebay or online somewhere.

Last month I was looking for a 12 mm 1.25 tap & die, spent 4 nights looking online, ebay had some good prices from China but the last time I ordered from China it took over 2 months to get the order, the US locations was I thought on the high side for ebay, same on amazon. So on Sat. I went to the nearest hardware store, they had the 12mm tap, $8.00, bought that and some other stuff, and after using up 3 hrs. by now, I didn't want to spend all day riding around the country side and risking getting the (I'm No. 1 hand gesture) went back home and did what I wanted to do on my Sat. off.

At night went back online net shopping again for the illusive 12mm die, went to a bunch of sites that are mentioned here, but this one unknown never heard of site came up>>> Opentip.com: Online shopping for promotional items, sporting goods, office products, home and garden, and apparel. <<< what is a place like this doing selling taps&dies, for some reason they had a good selection at the best price by far, so after checking out this store making sure it was located in Timbuktu China, I ordered the die, got in 4 days, looks like good quality, better then the Harbor Freight set I have. The ordering was easy, shipping not hidden under 20 pages of bla bla bla somewhere.

 

[Mauser12]

I heard a HD manager telling his "associates"...that 'Home Depot' "WAS NOT A HARDWARE STORE"...FWIW...!

From my experiences there, I believe he was correct.

 

[Oaktree]

We were vacationing in Maine for a few days and stopped in a store called Marden's. It's a chain of overstock/discontinued items/distressed merchandise outlets. Much to my surprise, they (at least the store we visited) had a bigger selection of nuts, bolts, etc. than any hardware store I've ever been in.
Not really relevant to this discussion, but my wife said the same thing about their selection of cloth.

Definitely a place to visit again.

 

[N80]

Not really relevant to this discussion, but my wife said the same thing about their selection of cloth.

Similar problem though. My wife sews. Quite talented in fact. All the fabric stores have closed up and gone away here. Nothing local. Have to drive 45 minutes to find a real fabric/sewing store. Why? Same as everything else I'd guess. Fewer people who do their own work, Walmart etc put the fabric stores out of business.

 

[Firemanbuck82]

Similar problem though. My wife sews. Quite talented in fact. All the fabric stores have closed up and gone away here. Nothing local. Have to drive 45 minutes to find a real fabric/sewing store. Why? Same as everything else I'd guess. Fewer people who do their own work, Walmart etc put the fabric stores out of business.

As much as I love to bash Walmart, I'm thinking the reason most of the fabric stores are gone is because MOST women (and men) no longer learn, nor use the art of sewing clothes. Without that market of sew-ers, the fabric stores have no one to sell to. It's not like Walmart has a better, more diverse and cheaper selection of fabric.

I learned to sew back in high school from my mother. There used to be a line of make-your-own outdoor gear called Frostline. Kits would come with the cutout fabric pieces. I remember making down booties, a down vest and a rain jacket. A friend of mine made a tent (ok the pointy parts of the tent were a mess of stitching, but it held) and a former girlfriend made me a pair of snow gaiters which I still have 40 years later (the gaiters, not the girlfriend).

 

[N80]

Agreed, but places like Walmart do carry some sewing stuff and so with declining demand and the competition of one stop shopping for cheap Chinese goods, it was likely another nail in the coffin.

 

[two_bit_score]

As much as I love to bash Walmart, I'm thinking the reason most of the fabric stores are gone is because MOST women (and men) no longer learn, nor use the art of sewing clothes. Without that market of sew-ers, the fabric stores have no one to sell to. It's not like Walmart has a better, more diverse and cheaper selection of fabric.

I learned to sew back in high school from my mother. There used to be a line of make-your-own outdoor gear called Frostline. Kits would come with the cutout fabric pieces. I remember making down booties, a down vest and a rain jacket. A friend of mine made a tent (ok the pointy parts of the tent were a mess of stitching, but it held) and a former girlfriend made me a pair of snow gaiters which I still have 40 years later (the gaiters, not the girlfriend).

Agreed, but places like Walmart do carry some sewing stuff and so with declining demand and the competition of one stop shopping for cheap Chinese goods, it was likely another nail in the coffin.

Every country from Albania to Zimbabwe it seems is stitching stuff together to sell in the US. Prices are less for a ready made garment than someone can buy materials and make clothes. And it's still impossible to get a good khaki work shirt.


TBS

 

[N80]

And it's still impossible to get a good khaki work shirt.


TBS

Or Khaki pants or jeans or..........

My wife did not make typical clothes. She mostly made children cloths. She made them then did something called smocking by hand. Had some kind of machine called a surger. (???) Anyway, people offered her hundreds to make these sorts of things but she did it for fun and gave them away. It takes her days to make a child's dress.

 

[Oaktree]

Traveling out west on several occasions, I always marveled at the different chains available for consumers. Only a couple years ago did we get a Costco store in the area in Ma. Krispy Kreme came and went much to my chagrin.

What may be a household name in some areas are simply "a what?" in much of the east. Tractor Supply seems pretty spread out. No such thing as a Menard's or McCoys here.

Try living in northern New England, by comparison you're living in a retail wonderland! Realistically, we have a 2 hour drive to get to anywhere with a decent selection of stores of any sort.
Same thing for restaurants...a couple years ago I remember seeing a ranking of the top/best burger places in the country. Of the list, there was only one (5 Guys) that I'd ever even heard of, and the nearest one to me is probably 90 miles away.
Even supermarkets...it's a long drive if you want to go anywhere other than a Shaws. Used to be a pretty good chain years ago, but they've slipped badly.

OTOH, we do have a Lowes, HD, Tractor Supply and HF all within a half hour drive so all is not lost.

 

[Big Barn]

I have a small pathetic Home Depot 10 minutes and an equally useless Princess Auto 45 minutes away.

No tractor dealers to speak of but 5 Tim Hortons and 7 Starbucks within a mile radius of the farm. Go figure.

Terry

 

[ultrarunner]

^^^Sounds like it will not be a Farm much longer... when the Starbucks start multiplying the end days are near...

 

[Big Barn]

^^^Sounds like it will not be a Farm much longer... when the Starbucks start multiplying the end days are near...

I'm surrounded by housing on two sides. The nearest new subdivision used to be a small dairy farm owned by friends of my parents. The seventeen 5000sq ft serviced **building LOTs ONLY** sold for around $700,000.00 EACH within a few months.

My farm land is in a flood plain and ecologically sensitive area. No buildings or human habitation allowed. Period. I'd be lucky to get $100,000.00 an acre on a good day.

Sorry for the rant. Back to fasteners.....

 

[dragoneggs]

I learned to sew back in high school from my mother. There used to be a line of make-your-own outdoor gear called Frostline. Kits would come with the cutout fabric pieces. I remember making down booties, a down vest and a rain jacket. A friend of mine made a tent (ok the pointy parts of the tent were a mess of stitching, but it held) and a former girlfriend made me a pair of snow gaiters which I still have 40 years later (the gaiters, not the girlfriend).

I have a small pathetic Home Depot 10 minutes and an equally useless Princess Auto 45 minutes away.

No tractor dealers to speak of but 5 Tim Hortons and 7 Starbucks within a mile radius of the farm. Go figure.

Terry

We live in a fast food, instant gratification society now that WE created. Time is money. Most like the convenience and thus the Big Box stores, online retailing, etc. The DIYer is becoming a rarer breed sadly but inevitably so. My son at 28 is just now realizing he should have paid more attention to dad's projects and tools. Now we are an hour apart and the luxuries of teaching and using tools are not at his doorstep.

And now he sees the value. I was always the repair man.