Matt Hiatt checks out a sink Wednesday in the Re-store facility of the Greater Mount Airy Area Habitat for Humanity, where such items will sold Saturday during a “clean house” liquidation auction.

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A desire by the Greater Mount Airy Area Habitat for Humanity to “clean house” offers a chance for the public to buy various building materials and other items at less-than-tidy sums.

This will be possible through the Clean House Habitat Auction to be held Saturday at the agency’s ReStore in Mount Airy, beginning at 10 a.m. That facility is a retail arm of the organization, where donated merchandise and other items are sold to aid its core mission of building homes for deserving local families.

But space issues have been encountered there, according to local Habitat Executive Director Lynn Wilkes, which created a need for Saturday’s sale that will be conducted inside the ReStore at 813 Merita St.

“Basically, we’re going to be auctioning off merchandise from our store,” Wilkes explained Wednesday. “Most of it is stuff that’s been here for a while, and we just want to make room for some more merchandise.”

The list will include surplus building materials such as plumbing, electrical and additional supplies, along with tools.

Fixtures such as sinks, faucets and toilets also are to be available along with doors and other items geared to both interior and exterior home construction as well as commercial use. Raw materials such as lumber will not be sold, Wilkes said.

Much of what will be on the auction block are “gently used” items that have been donated to Habitat for Humanity, although some new products from the Lowe’s home-improvement store are being offered, she said.

Saturday’s event will be held in the warehouse area of the ReStore, which adjoins retail space where appliances, household items and general merchandise are sold at discount prices.

Wilkes said couches and other furniture pieces from that section, along with housewares and interior-decorating products, also will be offered for sale in the warehouse.

“We’re going to be getting rid of some stuff on the floor that hasn’t been moving,” she said of inventory at the ReStore on Merita Street, pointing out that “some people don’t even know we’re here.”

The Greater Mount Airy Area Habitat for Humanity has held auctions in the past, most recently a “chair-ity” auction in May of old chairs and tables that had been decorated as works of art, but Saturday will bring a first.

“This has not been done before, not to this extent,” Wilkes said of the “clean house” format.

Items will be offered on an absolute-auction basis, which means sales to the highest bidder regardless of price.

Given that the ReStore already sells wares at discounted prices, the Habitat official said Saturday’s auction should result in bargains for buyers who also will be aiding a worthy cause.

The event will be conducted by Wendy H. Rierson of Pilot Mountain, an auctioneer with Hendrix Auction Co.

Reach Tom Joyce at 719-1924 or tjoyce@heartlandpublications.com.