Habitat For Humanity Vancouver Restore

If you need a door or faucet or anything and you don’t want to spend too much than this is the place to go. We come here for anything that we need for our tenants. So I bought a second hand foldable door for $ 10. The things can be pretty inside the store. You do need to clean the things before bringing it home. There are paper towels in the girls washroom.
Things are cheap and not bad. You just have to know your stuff.
In the past, I have bought fault including the sink for $ 20. Not bad and been using it for 5 years and I have no problems with it.

We are restoring an elderly house on a worse than snug budget so Restore is godsend. They have revamped the store in the past year. Over that time, we have found the staff outstanding in their friendliness and helpfulness. They’ve even offered to carry stuff to our car. They have gotten so particular about what they will accept which is bad for donors wanting to be rid of stuff in a responsible way but great for shoppers. While their kitchens are the priciest of the three Restores in the lower mainland, they were worth 10s of thousands new. Whether a for a little missing part, a stray door pull, or a sink, this place is well worth putting on your shopping list.

This store and the Burnaby store used to be great places to shop for some good deals but not anymore! There’s constant staff and volunteer turnover and moral seems pretty low, staff aren’t overly friendly or helpful. The prices are crazy high now! No return policy and most stuff is missing parts or not working. The staff have NO KNOWLEDGE of the products they sell and are not the least bit «mechanically inclined» for the most part. Still, I’ve heard them ramble on very authoritatively with inaccurate and misleading «facts» about the products and how to use and/​or install them. You really have to know your prices and your product before you buy anything there they because they are very often much higher than Home depot or Rona. Some of the stuff they sell is just garbage like paint base that you can’t get tinted or deadbolts without keys for $ 40, the same deadbolt, brand new is $ 40 and rekeying is $ 50. They sell used appliances for $ 250 to $ 300 with no knowledge of who owned it or how it was abused or if it even works. You can get the same stuff on Craigslist for free. The prices vary greatly between the stores too. This location had a door insert window blind for $ 15 and north van had the same thing for $ 40. And DON’T ever point that out to them unless you want to see some real attitude! Right now they have Swiss-​made bathroom cabinets for $ 600, what a steal of a deal! Last winter they were selling half a sectional couch for $ 600, really? Why? The stores are filled with high priced $ 200 and $ 300 lights, $ 2000 dinning tables, cracked acrylic bathtubs for $ 300, outdated kitchen cabinet sets for $ 2000, half used, dried tubes of caulking, obsolete and rusted electrical equipment and dangerously damaged or incomplete power tools missing safety guards and attachments. This is no longer a good shopping experience for the do it yourselfer. The sale prices can be good, but you have to know your stuff ! The sales vary between the stores too. One store was selling light fixtures for $ 10 and another location was selling the exact same fixture for $ 85. Insane! If you bought the one for $ 85 and then saw it for $ 10 you are $hit out of luck! Buyer beware! Too bad. It used to be an awesome resource for homeowners trying to save a few bucks on a project.

The ReStore is what happens when thrift stores stop taking furniture. They set up a gigantic warehouse and display pieces in various «sets,» with accompanying hardware and accessories located nearby. Some of these furniture pieces are a real steal, and some like a fully fabricated kitchen cabinet set, come in at over $ 1000.
Regardless, there are great deals to be had to match your (desired) budget. The donations they receive vary between barely working ikea trash to high end designer furniture. They also have tools, materials, and decorations, if you’re shopping for those items.
What they do not have is a lot of volunteers. The ones they do have are constantly pre occupied and might need a bit of patience or help to get around to you. Of course, you could always aid this situation by volunteering your own time, they only ask for four hours a week. You’ll be doing the customers a favour, as well as the hard to house in Canada!

My husband and I decided to stop here on a drive back from one of our favourite garden centres in Southlands. It was well worth the stop. The place is not a place where you are going to find exactly what you want on any given day.
When we stopped there we were just looking in to see if there was a door we would like for our pantry. There was one outside that we liked and went in to ask the cost. Turns out it was just dumped there so we got if for a $ 10 donation. It’s perfect for what we need.
I will definitely be back to see if there is anything else we can use. I don’t want to spend an arm & a leg at regular places like Home Depot when I am just renting the place but I do want to make it a home.
I had great service and found what I needed at a GREAT price.

NOTE: Score reflects only customer service.
One must NOT expect superior service in a retail operation such as this. Items are put on the floor for sale with little staff to do anything but watch the front desk/​check-​out. Self-​serve should yield some good buys .
With that said, however, one must EXPECT to be treated as a human being. I was being helped at the front desk by a man who offered to show me where there was wood stain for sale. His female counterpart (= manager ??) at the front desk told him that he could NOT leave the front area but could only point in the direction of the item in which I was interested.
This other women/​manager really treated me like I was a subhuman.
Plenty of other shops for me to frequent.

This is the kind of place you want to like. I went in, just needing a nickel-​coated light plate. I found one in a bin amongst a bunch of others with a $ 1 price tag. Happy at my find I brought it to the front, where 3 girls sat bored out of their brains. They didn’t talk, just held it up for someone else to look at. I told the woman they showed where I’d found it and asked how much. She said she wanted to know where I found it because they don’t sell light plates. Clearly they do, because i had found a bin. As soon as I showed her she starting muttering, «oh, no-​no, this one’s been removed form another lamp» with a slightly accusing tone, then scuttled off to see where it came from. She was more concerned about finding a matching lamp (of which I saw none) than a customer in her midst. Obviously I wasn’t going to win this one. «Where can I get a light plate like this one?» I asked. «Oh y’know, one of the regular stores». No customer service here. I prob would’ve bought the whole lamp if she found the matching one, but sales didn’t seem to be her concern.