I recently made a visit to Oakland, California and got to check out some interesting shops there and in nearby Berkeley, CA. I found a mix of full merchandise stores and a couple cool specialty thrift shop locations.
This article is part of a series where I give an inside scoop on fun and unique thrift shops that offer great prices on reusable items. I explore the most interesting collections of gently used secondhand merchandise on offer in a certain locale.
Reuse Arts & Crafts
I found out about this specialty craft thrift shop from a Berkeley area Recycling newsletter several months ago and it instantly went on my list of places to check out when I was next visiting the Bay Area. What fun!
There is a huge selection of craft supplies for a wide range of art and artisan projects in this compact store in Berkeley. This thrift shop strikes me as a great resource, not only for artists, but for people designing costumes for theater or Cosplay.
There was a nice selection of interesting items that could be slated for reuse selected by people with a eye towards design: vintage hats, unique glassware and vintage kitchen tools, silk flower arrangements, bits & bobs of colorful profusion.
I spent a lot of time in the Jewelry area – which ranges from fairly nice stuff (artisan made) to bright Costume confections to a couple of huge table tops of broken pieces that you could sort through for hours to find the perfect reusable “gems”.
The shop is well stocked with fabric, yarn, other textiles, interesting craft paper, paints, brushes, stamping and other artist tools.
The far back wall has an interesting collection of metal/wire/other material parts that might spark your “Steampunk” vibe. This is a store where you might want to visit several times to actually be able to absorb everything that is there, from floor to ceiling.
| Described in a few words … | All things crafty : ephemera |
| Best thing I bought | Vintage clip earrings for $5 that I plan on converting to dangly earrings on French Wires, similar to my article on Make Earrings – It’s Easy |
| Prices | Earrings as low as $2, discounts on craft items varied depending on what the item was and whether the package had been opened/partially used. |
| Discounts | Check with the store |
| Location | 1824 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA |
| Parking | Parking in front of the store is paid and requires an app. Instead, go west down the side street and park for free in the neighborhood behind the store. I easily found a spot about a block away. |
If you’d like to see the new earrings that were made from the vintage earrings above, please see: New Earrings from Old: Vintage Earrings.
Urban Ore
What a really great name for a reusable building supply resource in an ultra-urban area like San Francisco’s East Bay! I could spend hours ‘mining’ in a place like this.
As I was walking through the outdoor supply yards surrounding the big Urban Ore building, I was thinking that it might be good that I had to limit myself to things that could be carried home on the airplane! There were so many fun & funky & LARGE things that would be great buys. Checkout the vintage metal light pole in the picture below, for example. If you are fond of interesting ‘rusty metal’ like I am, this place is heaven. There were several outdoor aisles of reusable stuff with good organization.
There was an enormous selection of building materials, especially doors inside the big building. I think I read that they have over 6000 doors and some of them are truly spectacular. The selection of aged doors seems a wonderful resource for anyone trying to restore a vintage home in the San Francisco Bay area!
There was a great selection of lighting and lighting parts and it covered a large area. If you need antique switch plate covers, this is the spot for you.
The lettering on the blue tape says “Disco Ball not for sale 🙁 “
Other areas that had great collections included furniture, vintage clothing, vintage musical instruments and electronics, art supplies, tools, lighting, plumbing, and housewares. They had a print media area (old prints, postcards, etc.) that is pretty unique as a thrift offering.
| Described in a few words … | Reuse of things architectural and arty |
| Best thing I bought | A white track light fixture for $2 – it might sound boring to you, but I had been keeping an eye out for this exact fixture for three months. The E26 base allowed me to easily use it with a LED spot. |
| Prices | Consistent with other building thrift stores I’ve visited. |
| Discounts | Check with the store |
| Location | 1824 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA |
| Parking | Parking is free in front of the store, and free street parking is available outside of the fenced yard. It might get overwhelmed a bit on popular days like Saturday. |
Urban Furniture & Boutique
This cute shop is on a downtown Oakland retail street. There wasn’t a lot of room for furniture, but they had a few select pieces in a ‘living room’ arrangement near the front of the store, decorated with artwork and decor.
A hard-to-miss entrance – I liked their innovative & arty sign.
They had a nice selection of clothing, shoes and accessories packed into a small storefront in a busy neighborhood shopping street (lots of places to eat, coffee, a cool plant store, etc.)
| Described in a few words … | Colorful Boutique |
| Best thing I bought | 🙁 |
| Prices | A combination of Thrift Store prices and higher prices on the boutique selections. You can see from the picture above that some selections were as low as $5. |
| Discounts | Check with the store |
| Location | 3237 Grand Ave, Oakland, CA |
| Parking | Parking is free on the street in front of the store, but even in the middle of the day during the week it was full. I ended up in paid parking a couple blocks away. May you be luckier in your timing! |
Thrift Shop Berkeley Humane
I made a quick stop into this nicely arranged shop: their name describes their mission helping pets needing homes, medical attention and care.
The shop is on an attractive corner just north of Berkeley in Albany. Apparently they just added a shop in Berkeley, but I didn’t have time to visit both shops.
A great deal of the space is dedicated to higher end clothing.
Big glass cases surrounding the register area contained a wide array of jewelry and smaller decorative items. It was evident that the staff and volunteers put a lot of effort into presentation of the second hand but mostly good quality items for sale.
| Described in a few words … | Thrifty Boutique |
| Best thing I bought | 🙁 |
| Prices | Pricing seemed to be at a mid-point between thrift and consignment, reflecting the quality of the items for sale. |
| Discounts | Check with the store |
| Location | 1120 Solano Ave. Albany, CA |
| Parking | Parking near the store seemed to be paid meters. I found a free spot about 1.5 blocks away on San Pablo Ave. |
St. Vincent de Paul Building Materials
A trip to this SVDP is a “two in one” for your gas money: it shares a parking lot with a Habitat for Humanity ReStore.
I found a great selection of reusable building supplies here. Everything from lighting to a big supply of lumber was neatly arranged in various departments.
The used appliance selection at this store was really spectacular! If you have room for a big range like these, there were top end names like Viking and Wolf. There were normal 30″ wide appliance choices, as well.
| Described in a few words … | ‘Two for One’ Reusable Building Supplies |
| Best thing I bought | 🙁 |
| Prices | Consistent with other building thrift stores I’ve visited. |
| Discounts | Check with the store |
| Location | 9235 San Leandro St, Oakland, CA |
| Parking | Free parking available in a big parking lot shared by SVDP & ReStore. |
Other Thrift Store Junkie Locations
- Thrifting in SW Denver, Colorado
- Thrifting in Glenwood Springs, Colorado (but think “Aspen”)
- Thrifting in Salt Lake City, Utah
- More locations coming soon …
New to Thrifting? Learn more about why you should join the ‘reuse’ economy at Benefits of Thrifting – Top 10 Reasons for Thrift Shopping.
