At Home vs Hobby Lobby: Which for Home Decor?

Hobby Lobby operates more than 1,000 stores across 48 states and describes itself as the largest privately owned arts-and-crafts retailer in the world. At Home operates 229 stores across 39 states. That is better than four to one on locations, which for a lot of people is the whole decision.

But raw store count overstates Hobby Lobby’s availability, because every Hobby Lobby is closed on Sunday. This is company policy rather than regional variation: stores run Monday through Saturday, 9:00am to 8:00pm, and the company states it closes on the day most widely recognized as a day of rest so employees and customers have more time for worship and family.

If you decorate on weekends — which most people do — that removes half your available time at the store with four times the locations. I have watched clients lose a Sunday to exactly this, driving to a Hobby Lobby for a framing quote and finding the lot empty. At Home keeps normal seven-day retail hours.

One more availability note on At Home: it filed Chapter 11 in June 2025 and exited in late October 2025, eliminating nearly all of roughly $2 billion in funded debt, securing $500 million in exit financing, and passing to ownership by a group of its former lenders. It closed about 30 of the 260 stores it had at filing. It is operating normally now, but if your nearest At Home was one of the closures, the next one may be a long drive — check the locator rather than relying on memory.

There is real overlap in the middle — both sell wall decor, textiles, candles, lamps and seasonal — but each has categories the other simply does not compete in.

At Home owns the big and the bulky. Furniture: seating, dining, bedroom. Patio, which Hobby Lobby does not carry at all. Large-format area rugs. Oversized mirrors and wall art. Warehouse format is what makes those categories possible, and it is why At Home is the store you go to when you are furnishing rather than accessorising. It also has the largest planned seasonal program of any store in this comparison — whole aisles, coordinated, and re-buyable next year.

Hobby Lobby owns making things. Fabric by the yard, which matters for cushions, curtains, table linens and reupholstery. Custom framing, which no other store in this comparison has at all. Art supplies, yarn, floral stems and craft materials. Plus a decor assortment that leans traditional and seasonal, on a rotating weekly-ad sale cadence rather than everyday-low-price.

The honest split:

• A sofa, dining set, or bedroom furniture: At Home. Hobby Lobby tops out at accent pieces.
• Patio furniture: At Home. Not a Hobby Lobby category.
• A large area rug: At Home, with published sizes.
• Custom framing for art or a mirror: Hobby Lobby. Nobody else here does it.
• Fabric for cushions or curtains: Hobby Lobby. At Home sells finished textiles only.
• Artificial florals and stems: Hobby Lobby, on depth and on the sale cadence.
• A whole coordinated room in one trip: At Home.
• Traditional or farmhouse seasonal styling: Hobby Lobby. For contemporary seasonal at scale, At Home.

The two use opposite pricing mechanics, and knowing which one you are in changes how you should shop.

At Home runs everyday low prices on its own assortment. The price is the price, most weeks. That makes it easy to plan a room budget and buy it in one trip, and it means there is rarely much reward for waiting.

Hobby Lobby runs a rotating category sale cadence through its weekly ad. Different departments go on sale in rotation, and the swing between the regular price and the sale price on decor categories is substantial. The consequence is that Hobby Lobby rewards patience and punishes urgency: buying a category at regular price when it rotates onto sale every few weeks is the most common way to overpay there.

So the practical guidance differs by store. At At Home, buy when you need it. At Hobby Lobby, check the current ad before you go, and if the category you want is at regular price and you are not in a hurry, wait for the rotation. For things that need to be cheap right now regardless, see our cheap home decor picks, which show live current prices.

Both are more generous than the off-price stores, and Hobby Lobby is nominally longest — with one exception that matters a great deal to the exact shoppers this comparison attracts.

• Hobby Lobby: 90 days with a receipt, for an exchange, store credit, or a refund to your original payment method. Without a receipt you get an exchange or a merchandise credit at the lowest selling price in the last 60 days, with a valid ID. Merchandise must be unopened and in sellable condition — opened or used goods cannot be returned.
• At Home: 60 days for unused items in original packaging, extended to 90 days for Insider Perks / Design Rewards members. Proof of purchase can be your rewards account, the card you paid with, or a receipt plus valid ID. Items shipped to your home can be returned free at a local store or mailed back via self-service.

The exception worth planning around: Hobby Lobby states that seasonal items from a bulk purchase — Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s, St. Patrick’s, Spring, Easter, Graduation, Summer, July 4th, Back-to-School and Fall/Thanksgiving — may incur a 20% restocking fee on return.

Read that against what people actually do at Hobby Lobby, which is buy seasonal decor in quantity on spec. A 20% haircut on a large returned Christmas order is real money. If you are buying bulk seasonal and you might return some of it, At Home’s 60 days with no restocking fee is the safer place to over-buy. If you are certain, Hobby Lobby’s sale cadence usually makes it cheaper.

• Furniture, patio, or a large rug: At Home. Hobby Lobby does not compete.
• Custom framing: Hobby Lobby.
• Fabric by the yard: Hobby Lobby.
• A whole coordinated room in one trip: At Home.
• Seasonal at maximum scale: At Home for contemporary and for range; Hobby Lobby for traditional styling and for the sale price.
• Bulk seasonal you might return: At Home — no restocking fee.
• Artificial florals and stems: Hobby Lobby, timed to the ad.
• Anything on a Sunday: At Home. Hobby Lobby is closed.
• Proximity: Hobby Lobby, with four times the locations — six days a week.
• Anything you may return without a receipt: At Home, which accepts your rewards account or payment card as proof.

• Hobby Lobby — Our Story — more than 1,000 stores in 48 states, and the largest privately owned arts-and-crafts retailer claim.
• Hobby Lobby — why stores are closed on Sundays — the Monday-to-Saturday 9:00am–8:00pm hours and the stated reason.
• Hobby Lobby — in-store return policy and shipping & returns — the 90-day window, the no-receipt terms, and the 20% bulk seasonal restocking fee.
• At Home return policy — the 60-day standard and 90-day member windows and the proof-of- purchase options.
• Retail Dive: At Home exits bankruptcy — the Chapter 11 timeline, debt eliminated, new ownership, and the 260-to-229 store count.