A shop for things that already worked
Second Home Store buys the good stuff people leave behind, kitchens, dining sets, lamps, chairs, the box of glassware from a move, and sells it again from a storefront on Figueroa St.
A real storefront, not a warehouse with a website
Second Home Store has been open on Figueroa St in downtown Santa Barbara for a few years now. It is a walk-in shop first: people come through the door, look a piece over, pick it up, and turn it around before they decide.
The site carries the same inventory as the floor, photographed the same day a piece goes out, so what you see online is what is actually sitting a few feet from the register. Nothing is listed here that is not also standing in the shop.
Four ways a piece ends up here
Nothing on the floor was bought new for the shop. Everything came from a house somewhere in the county.
Estate clearings
A family closes out a house, often after someone has passed or moved into care. We go through it room by room and buy what still has real use left in it.
Moves
People leaving Santa Barbara, or leaving a bigger place for a smaller one, sell what will not fit in the truck.
Downsizing
Kids move out, a kitchen gets remodeled, a garage finally gets cleared. The pieces worth keeping come to us instead of the curb.
Paid donations
Some people would rather not deal with a sale at all. We still pay for anything worth putting on the floor, it just moves through the shop faster.
Most of what we're offered does not make the floor
More gets turned away at the door than gets accepted. Here is what sends something back to the curb instead of onto a shelf.
- Broken beyond a simple fix
- A lamp that needs new wiring or a chair that needs a new joint, we can usually handle. A dead motor or a frame cracked through is not worth the shelf space.
- Missing the part that makes it work
- A blender without a blade, a lamp without a working cord, a dresser missing half its drawers. We do not sell props.
- Stained, torn, or worn past a clean
- Upholstery and textiles either come clean or they do not come in. There is no grade low enough to cover a piece that still smells like the last house.
- Recalled or unsafe
- Anything under an active safety recall, or that fails a basic function and safety check, gets declined regardless of how good it looks otherwise.
Every piece is washed, tested, and graded before it is priced
- 01
Clean
Dishes and glassware go through the wash. Wood gets oiled or waxed. Textiles are laundered, or sent to a cleaner first if they need more than a wash.
- 02
Test
Anything with a plug gets tested on our bench, run for real rather than just switched on. Furniture gets sat on, opened, and checked for wobble before it earns a grade.
- 03
Grade
We write down the actual condition in one honest sentence and price against that, not against what the piece cost new.
The math is simple, even if we do not put it on a sign
A single van load, what fits between a house and the shop in one trip, usually runs 800 to 1,200 pounds of kitchenware, furniture, and decor. We make that trip most weeks. None of it needs a new factory run, a new mold, or a new box to reach the person who ends up with it, because it already exists and it already works.
A cast iron pan cared for properly outlives three or four kitchens. A solid wood dining chair can survive five or six house moves before it needs real repair. Buying one here instead of new does not ask anyone to change how they shop. It just means one thing does not get made twice.
Come see what came in this week
The floor changes as fast as houses in this county do. Stop by 7 W Figueroa St or browse what is on the site right now.