Somewhere between my front porch and the vegetable  garden where I re-potted several planters yesterday (keeping a dirty job around the dirt dontcha know) a chain from one of the hanging baskets on the front porch deteriorated.

Aside from the fact that this means my husband will probably run over it with the mower and really screw something up like the mower or himself, I had to figure out a new way to hang the basket that lost part of its hanging device.

So I ran up to the hardware store to get some new chains.  While there I realized I should replace the hardware associated with the chains that hang the baskets, as it was in equally sad shape as the crumbling chains.  As the existing chain & hardware was black and all the stuff in stock at Martin’s was silver-toned, I realized that if the pair of front baskets were going to match, I needed to change out the hardware on both.   So one broken chain became two entire new hanging set-ups, which is what we used to call ‘scope creep’ back when I worked in building & design.

The lovely gentleman who helped me as I was wandering around the store clutching my broken chain steered me to where various parts that might be helpful in my quest were kept as he cut the required lengths of chain.  He recommended I check the front bins for hardware.

Where I scored these babies for 30 cents each.

Coupled with some new S-hooks from the bungee cord section for a whopping 29 cents each, and for a grand total of $6.41, my hanging baskets had new chains and hardware.

Turns out that ‘replacement’ S hooks in the bungee cord section are a dollar-something cheaper than pretty much the same size S-hook from the fastener section.  Thanks to the fact that the bungee cords and replacement hooks are hung right next to the chain cutting section, I know this and can pass this along to you.  This is the lesson of wandering through the hardware store looking for the cheapest, easiest answer.

I’m pretty darn tooting pleased with the finished product if I do say so myself.