Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity ReStore — Attraction in Wauwatosa

Biggest ReStore in the state. Humongous selection of furniture, tools, hardware, building supplies, appliances, decor, and more. They will pick up donations from your house. Volunteer staff is super friendly and will help you with whatever you need (like carrying all the great stuff you buy). Prices are super low - they are basically just trying to get rid of stuff before the next truck of donations arrives!

If you see something you like, you can buy it and pick it up later (for 1 week, after that they call to see if you still want it and if not they will put it back up for sale possibly without a refund). If you are going to be shopping for a while but see something you really want, they will reserve it for you for up to 2 hours.

Stuff moves really fast through the store, and if you go back a week later, almost everything will be gone and replaced with more great stuff. Things that aren't sold quickly will be discounted by 20%, then 50%, check the color of the price sticker. They regularly have 20% off everything sales (on Wednesdays I think). They have a frequent shopper program that offers even more discounts after a certain number of purchases.

If you need a new couch or a dining room set I highly recommend going here. If you don't see something you like, just come back next week and see what's in the latest batch.

Since it's so big and they move stuff so fast, it's pretty messy and sometimes a little hard to find things, so be sure to ask someone in a blue vest for help if you need it. There's only a single cash register, so occasionally the checkout line gets a little long, especially on weekends.

They are always looking for more volunteers, and I can say from experience that it's a really fun place to work. They have 4 or 8 hour shifts available and are completely flexible to any schedule. Jobs include loading/unloading, placing items on the floor, tidying up, running the register, pricing and labeling items, etc. Proceeds fund Habitat for Humanity, so even though the pay is lousy, the work is fun...

To start, I've donated many, many useful items over the years. But never again. As to a purchase I had made I had left an initial and an updated review about the 4 refrigerators in that purchase where it turned out they weren't really even close to being professionally checked out, and weren't in good working order as the tag had indicated. 3 out of the four were bad. One didn't cool the frig part, finding that out after putting it in an upstairs unit. I immediately checked the other 3 and one conked out overnight, and one just ran out of freon over about a month in storage. They say they'll do something about it but didnt follow up because I stored them for 3 weeks before I tried them and their policy was 1week. Buyer beware? On another note, 2 out of the 2 doors I had purchased from them were warped. Of course I found this out after prepping them for my project only to find out after I installed them. Of course a lot of this falls on the shoulders of the people knowingly donating items they know to be in these conditions. Just to screw the taxpayer for a write-off. Did I mention that I never took a write-off for...

I tried to donate some furniture a couple weeks ago. Dropped off a glass coffee table first. Then came back and dropped off a baby changing table. My final trip tried to donate a dresser/cabinet. They said they couldn't take any more donations from me because the baby changing table was in such "bad condition" they had to throw it away immediately. I asked what they meant by "bad condition?" They said there was some "gunk" they couldn't get off of it. Literally, there was maybe 3 square inches of dried wax from a candle that had spilled. That's so shameful. If I'd known it was going to be thrown away, I would have listed it on marketplace for free so it would have gone to a family that needed it. Instead it's being wasted in landfill. As for the dresser/cabinet they wouldn't take, the top had some scratched paint on top, but otherwise good condition. Just needed a little paint or stain. I did give that away on marketplace and the person that picked it up made it really nice with minimum effort. Photos attached...