Christmas Trees

Even though it's still November, the countdown to Christmas has begun. Since Cory and I have graduated from apartment living to house living, we decided it was time to buy our first real Christmas tree.

We stopped off at our neighborhood Lowes to get some hardware for our shelving project, and we walked through the garden center just to check prices of trees (see photo below for pricing, as I'm sure all Lowes have the same). Since the prices were so low, we picked ourselves up a $24.98, 6-7' Douglas Fir (The most common/popular Christmas Tree according to the guy that helped us out). The guys there trim the trunk, wrap it, load it, and tie it down on your car for free. Since we had the truck, we just loaded the tree in along with our wreath ($12).

My only complaint about Lowes is that they didn't carry the "tree food" or tree preservative. We had to make a stop at Hastings to pick up the stuff. Hastings also had some beautiful trees, but they were much more $$$ starting at $50 for what looked like a 5' to $100 for a 8'. Even though they were nice and lush, I just have a hard time spending that much money for a christmas tree.  And if your looking for even more selection, the Big John's Trees is set up in the parking lot of the vacant Wilson & Sons Antiques shopping center. 

We thoroughly enjoyed putting up our tree yesterday and decorating the house. Now every time we walk in the door all you smell is Christmas! Hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving, and we hope you enjoy the upcoming holidays!

Home Improvement

Since we've bought our house in April, we've tried to do a couple of small home improvement projects -some planned, others accidents. Either way we have hit up all three major hardware stores in our area: Home Depot on Linbergh, Lowe's on Peachtree and the "General Hardware" store that's actually an Ace Hardware (but also owned by Handy Hardware in Dacula? Not sure who owns who there) so I figured I'd give a little shoutout to what I've experienced.

While I've always considered myself a Home Depot man (being from GA and Home Depot was the go to spot for my dad), I have to admit, Home Depot would be my last choice out of the three. While Home Depot and Lowe's are very similar in their selection and staff know-how, the couple experiences I had at the Linbergh location have been sub-par. The customer service has been lacking, and the parking and traffic are miserable there. I pulled up to their "loading zone" pull through to load some stuff in the rain and was blocked in on both sides as people ran in to grab stuff. Terrible. Other than that, it's just a little further away from us, so I don't go.

The Ace on Peachtree was an adventure to go in. They boast over 10,000 items (it's on their sign) and I wouldn't doubt it for a second. Their shelves are literally stacked with stuff, its overwhelming. I guess I've been trained in the big box hardware store mentality and enjoy the luxuries of large aisles and open spaces. I definitely felt a little claustrophobic in their jungle of nuts and bolts. So I looked for the plumbing aisle to get a water feed for the toilet I was replacing (this one was an accident) and did some weaving through the aisles to find it was in the back of the store. Their staff was a little standoff-ish and I had to search the store for someone who could help me because I had no idea if I needed steel, pvc, etc. After playing marco polo in the aisles with this dude, he informed me that he would be right with me and he was helping someone else. After getting tired of waiting, I started looking for what I needed on my phone. The employee's 15 min. lecture to the customer about PVC pipe or something sounded quite informative, but I grabbed what I needed and got out of there quite pleased that I didn't get my own lecture.

Lowes has won my heart. First off, it's so convenient to get to and I can pull my truck right up to the entrance to load and nobody tells me to move. Second, their employees, while not always as knowledgeable as the Ace, are always helpful whether it's pointing me to the exact thing I'm looking for or helping me load bricks and sod in my truck. I admit I don't really "shop around" when I'm looking for hardware or landscaping materials so I can't really say whether their prices are the best for that kind of stuff. I'd assume they are pretty comparable to Home Depot and even the Ace. But one thing I did shop around for was appliances (W&D and refrigerator) and Lowe's has beaten Home Depot both times (Ace doesn't carry appliances) with price and delivery time. Bottom line, it has become my go to hardware/outdoor store and I recommend it.

Recently, Malory has been going to Hasting's for flowers and gardening, but that's a different post...