Ok Pete I see you beat me to it, I was getting ready to ask the op if there were no hardwood suppliers near him. Here we have a fantastic outfit, Shingletons Lumber. They have poplar in about three different grades one being about .57/ft. in the rough. Yes it had some knots and defects but it was still better than the borgs so called #2. If painting a project I personally always prefer poplar over pine. As Jim B said the darn pitch can be difficult to deal with in pine.
If at first you don't succeed, look in the trash for the instructions.