The hammers may be silent at the rising Habitat for Humanity house in Hamlet, but construction is going full bore at the organization’s ReStore in Rockingham.
Volunteers with screwdrivers are putting shelves together. Others are putting up stock. (Punch bowls seem to be in good supply.) And the money to buy materials and build more houses for low-income families is rolling in.
It’s all being done on a newly painted floor — it’s haint-repelling blue, replacing tired old carpet — and under a new manager. Amy Guinn started at the store June 1.
“It was one of those projects that definitely took longer than anticipated,” Guinn said Friday of ripping out the tacky carpet and coating the new floor. But “we wanted to make some changes. We hope that (the new look and) the mission of Habitat is something that attracts people.”
Those visiting the store at 1300 E. Broad Ave. within the next few days will see a space crammed higgledy-piggledy with stuff. (The cabinet doors and lumber poke out every whichaway behind an orange streamer strung to prevent browsing.) Shelves are under construction, and much of the floor is empty of stock.
But by midweek next week, Guinn said, the place should be in order.
Guinn has her sights set high for the new 3,000-square-foot store. She’s looking for a better quality in donations — the store need not act as an intermediary for people who just want the junk out of their houses.
Instead, Guinn wants the store to take in older but serviceable furniture, housewares and clothing. She hopes to have a section of uniforms in time for school shopping.
“We’re trying to get a better quality of merchandise,” she said. “We’re not taking some of the things we used to take” on visits to donors’ houses.
Sometimes, the store lands some profitable surprises. On Friday, for example, Guinn pulled out a little bit of collectibility: a McCoy planter in washed turquoise that didn’t even make it onto a shelf before it was snapped up.
Sometimes, the neighboring Lowe’s donates new materials, such as cabinets or sinks. To find something like that, a shopper just has to be lucky. Or have inside knowledge.
The store has begun a registry of names and telephone numbers for people looking for something specific — McCoy pottery, vintage glassware, the Midcentury Modern furniture that seems to be all the rage in the design world.
“In Richmond County,” Guinn said, “a lot of people are painting older furniture” — which both makes it serviceable and keeps it out of the landfill.
Payments for everything sold at the Habitat ReStore go toward the $35,000 needed yearly to keep the houses rising in Richmond County. The regional office, based in Aberdeen, has committed itself to building one house in the county each year — all with volunteer labor.
The one going up at 299 Oakland Ave. in Hamlet is the 245th to be built by Sandhills Habitat.
Habitat houses go to low-income families who put in at least 300 hours of sweat equity and qualify for a mortgage.
Reach reporter Christine Carroll at 910-817-2673.