Don't know if you folks ever heard of "stickers" at Lowe's, but they are a recent discovery of mine...I may be way behind the curve on that, though. Anyhoo...Lowe's gets these lengths of wood in between their shipments of drywall that they call "stickers". Heat or pressure treated, 3-4 ft. in length x 2-3 in. widthx 2 in. thick. They have a groove routed in one side of them but it's pretty shallow.
FREE. They just throw them away! So now I check the carts at the back of the store where the lumber is to see if any are in their "trash" carts they have and even behind the store where they sometimes pile them. I've not had much luck behind the store, as folks get them pretty quickly there but I think most hesitate to scrounge for them in the store itself...pride maybe? I have none when it comes to free lumber, so I can really clean up in there at times.
Just built a stoop for my hoop coop with them and plan on building a bench or two along the way...found some plans for using them in making a simple, easy to construct bench someone posted on another forum.
Free, folks...just throwing them away. We are a truly wasteful nation.
Friends I know sent for their 9 year old daughter who was living in Brazil. The fist couple of weeks here she was most taken with what people threw away.
Our wine fridge has some serious dents that you can't see because it is between two cabinets. Got it for one third the price. Had a rack missing but the guy just got one from another fridge that had dents.