Try freecycle for anything you need, you never know you might find pavers or bricks,or even something to help you with your new home! Good luck and welcome to Garden Junk!

Hi christie - Welcome to the boards! LOL - you may have been lurking longer than I have been around.. :)

Anywho - I agree - freecycle is a wonderful choice to get great items.. well for free..Also, in my local group it is common for members to list free for all after they have a yardsale.. Or if a nearby town is having a bulk pick-up day...(week)

Try them out if you are not already a member...

Here is a link that might be useful: Freecycle link

Shingles. A temporary measure for sure but it will give you a clean and fairly solid area to set a table and chairs set on (no grass or weeds can poke through). They're fairly inexpensive or you could watch for someone who has leftovers on freecycle. I too am trying to collect enough brick for a patio but in the mean time I'm going to use shingles (I got leftovers for free!). As I collect brick I can just lay it right over the shingles and it will keep the weeds from growing in the cracks for many years. They make great, temporary sidewalks too!

MeMo

What about doing something with concrete? I have wanted to get the forms that make the faux rock pieces that you can use for patios, sidewalks and anything else you can imagine. A couple of bags of Quikcrete really do not cost a huge bundle. The only problem will be time...it will take a bit to get the whole area finished.

Freecycle is great but only if you are one of the lucky ones that gets something! I have been a member of ours for the last year and only received one item right after joining. The item ended up not working for us and I re-Freecycled it. I got rid of a lot of stuff thanks to Freecycle, though!

Another place to look would be something like a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store! Our town just got one and I have yet to venture in there but I'm dying to!

The key to Freecycle is getting each message separately... Yeah it's a pain to have to delete them all... But when you are on the hunt.... It works wonders... Plus I ask for everything I possibly may want - ensuring I get 1/3 of what I need.

Then when I have a nice supply - I go back to daily combined messages.

I see too many people on our Freecycle asking for everything they possibly want...including cars, computers, trailers, campers....they just annoy me! This one lady seems to think she should get everything she wants and needs for her house for free! ANNOYING!

Our Habitat for Humanity is EXPENSIVE for the most part.
So is our Goodwill (it is a separate org. than the ones in Indiana-ours is 'Easter Seals') and I tried freecycle too. The 'wanters' out weigh the givers, and there are problems with pick-ups not showing up. My DD offered some stuff, folks called, made appts and never did show up.

Nona, those are the people who ruin things for everyone else. I would keep track of their names and try to avoid them in the future.

Don't you just hate it that all the places with "donated" items are getting so expensive? What's with that? They would sell so much more if they would just reduce their prices a couple bucks IMHO. LOL

Christie, perhaps you could just clear the grass and use a nice layer of mulch or rocks for a seating area. Then change it as time and money permit. Hope you get it done, so you can relax and enjoy your new home.

Luvs

What about watching for broken concrete pieces? If you find someone who's removing a patio, or if your town is repairing the roads sometimes you can get the pieces.
My sister recently removed an old patio and it seemed like such a shame to see all those pieces go to the dump--- but at the time I couldn't think what I would do with them. Of course within two weeks I had about ten places I could have put them...lol

It might take a while to do, getting all the pieces to fit, and it's probably going to be REALLY heavy, but it'd be close to free, seeing as you'd just have to spend the gas money to go get it.... and maybe buy some sand for between the pieces.

I've seen retaining walls built out of recycled concrete and it ages beautifully...so why not build a patio?

I bet you could start collecting used bricks and eventually find enough to do what you want. Many times you can get them for just hauling them away. Try running an ad in a classified paper and see if you get any responses.

You could do concrete yourself. They have concrete stamps now that can make an otherwise smooth concrete pad look like pavers or bricks. There are also hundreds of inexpensive forms on Ebay that you can use to pour your own pavers, stepping stones, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: This is one Ebay seller I like