Habitat For Humanity of Schenectady County

Extremely cheap household items, including furniture, appliances, cabinets, lamps and lighting, artwork, and anything else you could imagine in a house. The only items they don’t take are personal items, like cookware and clothing.
Their volunteer staff are usually very helpful and friendly. Since all their inventory are donations, they are able to sell everything at any price they want, and they sell it extremely cheap. You can find couches for $ 20 — $ 100, chandeliers for $ 35, cabinets for $ 25 a piece, and so on. They deliver for about $ 50, and they’ll pick up any donations you have for free (and you get a tax write-​off too!)
Recently, they got in a collection of artwork from an art gallery. Each piece had been listed for hundreds of dollars in the gallery, but the restore has been selling each one for anywhere between $ 10 to 50% off the listed price.
It’s worth checking them out regularly to see what new things they have in. Their inventory changes considerably each month, so a monthly trip wouldn’t be a bad idea if you’re in the market for anything they would offer.
If you like them, the Albany restore (on fuller rd) is worth the trek too; everything I just said applies to them as well, and they get in two truckloads of new donations each day to top it off, so their inventory zips right in and out.
Before you drive in to Schenectady, make sure to check their (limited) hours. Right now, they’re open Thursday — Saturday only, 9am-​3pm (except Thursday, 9 – 6). Thursday is your best bet in terms of new inventory and flexible hours.

This review is for ReStore, the store front for used furniture and recycled fixtures and appliances that Habitat for Humanity runs in downtown Schenectady. Habitat itself is an outstanding organization and does great work. The H for H offices are located on Pearl, so this should be recategorized in Unilocal as Home Furnishings /​Retail Furniture, not Contractor Services.
First off, hours: Thursday 10 – 6, Friday and Saturday 10 – 3. Tip: if you come early on Thursday, you’ll have your best chance of getting pick of the new stock for the week, since they’re closed the other days but continue to collect donations.
So this is basically a thrift store specializing in furniture. It’s everything you’d expect from a place that runs on donations. The stock is not by any means new or in style, but they do a good job in filtering out items so you don’t have any dirty or unusually smelly items. Some of the items I looked at were broken or had significant flaws, but they for the most part seem to have filtered out truly unusable stuff. They do have a little bit of everything, and the repurposed fixtures (including doors and windows) are probably the cheapest you’ll find anywhere.
I had a little difficulty at first getting appropriate help — there were many volunteers but they had to find the chief guy in charge to do pricing for me, and they kept asking me the same questions about the items I picked out (as to whether they belonged in a set or not, like that matters for very used furniture) — but it’s hard to quibble with volunteers on the basis of the service. They tried, even if they weren’t as organized about things as they could be. Be patient with this sort of thing if you go in.
If Design on a Dime ever does a Schenectady show, they’ll love it here. I have a lot of fun speculating about previous owners of many of these items. (I really got a hoot about the five-​piece living room set I saw on my most recent visit, where there was a built-​in Stereophonic Console in the corner table unit. 1966, here we come!!)
I also urge you if you do go, round up on your purchases and throw the extra money into the donation kitty. This group builds houses for people, and does it in a way that brings the people who will live in the house and own it into the building process. It may be unfortunate that this is needed, but it is, and doing a little shopping here can help this effort while helping yourself.
One caveat: from the blank expressions I got when I asked if they check for bed bugs on the furniture upholstery, I’m going to guess that they do not do their own screening here. So given the reality of bed bugs and older pieces of furniture, I urge you to check for yourself. This is true for any used furniture these days.
Update: adding a fourth star after multiple visits — the stock really does zing in and out (well, some of it) and Thursday mornings are definitely your best bet. The second floor, which I neglected earlier, has miscellaneous small fixtures, lamps, plumbing stuff, and so forth.