A new Belfast store will help area residents to make affordable home improvements while also supporting the creation of housing in a region that desperately needs it.
Earlier this month, the Waldo County chapter of Habitat for Humanity opened the ReStore, which is a brick-and-mortar shop that sells discounted furnishings and appliances, and uses the proceeds to pay for the organization’s core mission of constructing new affordable homes.
The Belfast ReStore, at 92 Belmont Ave., is the first one in Waldo County. There are five other ReStore locations around Maine, including two in the midcoast, in Rockport and Bath. Others are located in Bangor, Portland and Kennebunk. Another ReStore once operated in Ellsworth, but it closed in 2019, according to the Ellsworth American.
The Waldo County chapter of Habitat for Humanity is currently building its sixth house in the region, in the town of Prospect. The organization selects families through an application process and helps them build and renovate their own homes, providing volunteer labor and helping to arrange an affordable mortgage.
It has taken the chapter several years of planning to open the new ReStore, according to store manager Jill Riley. It is mostly volunteer-run and stocked exclusively by donations — such as a refrigerator that Riley was waiting to be delivered on Thursday.
Among the home improvement parts customers can find at the store are windows, tiles, chimney materials and larger fixtures such as sinks, bathtubs, washers, dryers and stoves. They’re generally marked down by 50 percent when they’re in new condition, and by 70 percent when used.
Riley said the inventory could, for example, help a creative homeowner to make their own plumbing repairs.
“If somebody can learn how to do it and take care of it themselves, they can get the parts they need and watch a tutorial of some kind,” Riley said. “Getting a plumber is really difficult these days around this area.”
Riley hopes to expand the store’s inventory in the future, perhaps including sheet rock and other construction materials that builders have left over from their projects.
Some of the store’s donations come in virtually brand-new because they turned out to be incompatible with the projects for which they had been intended. A set of custom-made windows was donated recently and priced at $150 apiece. The store has also received a number of furniture donations, such as kitchen tables.
However, electronics including televisions and computers are turned away, Riley said, as they do not serve the purpose of rebuilding homes within the community and can often be donated elsewhere.
In the future, Riley and her team hope to secure access to a truck to help collect larger appliances and furniture from donors.
The Belfast ReStore is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday to Saturday. It accepts donations from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday.