Photo by: Rick Danzl/The News-Gazette

Habitat ReStore volunteer Ron Turner organizes kitchen items Wednesday in the basement at the facility on Walnut Street in Danville. The store will be closed from this Friday through Jan. 4 so that volunteers can clean and do some light remodeling in the store.

The Habitat ReStore in Danville will close over the holidays, starting Friday, so that volunteers can give the store a mini makeover. Meanwhile the Champaign ReStore closed today and will reopen Jan. 4 after undergoing a similar interior facelift.

Habitat for Humanity of Danville took possession of the building at 121 N. Walnut St. in May 2010 and opened the ReStore in late July of that year.

"We've been busy ever since," said Bob Marble, the store's volunteer manager. "We haven't had time to do the stripping of the floors and some of the cleanups we've wanted to do. ... This will make it look a lot cleaner and fresher."

The Danville ReStore is one of more than 750 home appliance, furniture and furnishings resale shops around the country that are run by the local Habitat chapter. The proceeds are used to help finance local chapters' home-building projects in their communities.

The Champaign store, 119 E. University Ave., also will undergo a makeover. The store is closed beginning Thursday, Dec. 22, and will reopen on Jan. 4. Its floors will be redone, the main floor reorganized and energy efficient lighting will be added.

"We've been in here a little over five years. It was time to swap things up a bit," said Champaign ReStore director Patti Darr.

The receiving area of the Champaign store will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, Dec. 26 through Friday, Dec. for donation dropoff.

The Danville store has 10,000 square feet on the main floor, including an attached garage, and a 10,000-square-foot basement that's used for storage.

Marble said a group of 15 or so volunteers will spend several days giving the building a thorough cleaning, painting some areas, stripping and waxing the floors, installing shelves that were donated from a local video store, and reorganizing other sections. They also will clean the basement and remove the home construction items that they can't sell in order to create more storage space. They'll also begin pricing hundreds of items in storage — everything from small and large appliances, sofas, chairs, tables, dinettes, kitchen cabinets, pots, pans, dishes, silverware, lamps and all sorts of knickknacks, the majority of which are donated.

"The more items we can have upstairs on the shelves, the faster they will go out," Marble said.

Starting in January, the ReStore will serve as a free drop-off site for electronics that residents can't dispose of in their regular trash under changes to the Illinois Products Recycling and Reuse Act. The electronics include televisions, monitors, printers, computers including tablets, mice, electronic keyboards, fax machines, portable digital music players, DVD players and recorders, video game consoles and cable and satellite receivers, among other items.

"We're going to designate an area in the garage that will serve as a drop-off site," Marble said, adding the Habitat chapter hopes to partner with a recycling business to recycle and dispose of the equipment properly.

The ReStore is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. Habitat officials said they're pleased with how well it has done in terms of donations and sales.

This year, the store sponsored its first home build — a 4,500-square-foot, four-bedroom home at 942 Harmon Avenue, Danville — that was Habitat's 48th project in the Danville area. Officials already have earmarked store proceeds for the organization's 49th and 50th projects as well.

"We have a really good donation base, a good customer base and a good volunteer base. But we could still use more," Marble said.

"We could use about 30 to 40 volunteers a week, but I only have half that many."

Those interested in volunteering may call 442-0004. They also can stop by the store and pick up a volunteer form.