At Home, the big-box home-decor chain, has widened its bankruptcy closure list to 32 stores, up from the 26 it first announced. The retailer filed for Chapter 11 in June while trying to restructure nearly $2 billion in debt, and the growing count signals that the reorganization is cutting deeper than the company initially planned. For shoppers who relied on the warehouse-sized stores for cheap furniture and seasonal goods, the expansion is a warning to watch their local branch and to spend any gift cards while the doors are still open.
How the closure list grew to 32
The chain began by targeting 26 underperforming locations for shutdown, with most of those closings expected to wrap up by the end of September. Since then the company has added six more stores to the list, pushing the total to 32 and spreading the pain across additional states. The newly added locations include stores in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, and Utah, communities where At Home had been a go-to source for low-cost home goods.
An expanding closure list is a familiar pattern in retail bankruptcies, where a company sets an initial number and then revises it as landlords, lenders, and sales figures force further trimming. The move from 26 to 32 reflects that recalibration rather than a single new crisis. As the restructuring proceeds, the company is reassessing which stores can carry their own weight and cutting those that cannot.
The count could still shift again before the process ends. Bankruptcy timelines leave room for both additions and reversals, and the chain has already changed course on individual stores. What is clear is the direction of travel: a retailer that operated a large national footprint is emerging from court markedly smaller than it went in.
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The bankruptcy and the debt behind it
At Home entered Chapter 11 in the middle of June, seeking to restructure close to $2 billion in debt and to secure roughly $200 million in financing to keep operating through the process. The chain ran as many as 260 stores across some 40 states, a footprint built during an era of cheap borrowing that grew harder to sustain as costs climbed and shoppers grew cautious about big-ticket home purchases.
Tariffs on imported goods have added to the strain, since much of the low-priced furniture and decor that fills the stores is sourced from overseas. As those import costs rose, the pressure on the company’s margins accelerated, squeezing a business model that depended on rock-bottom prices. Restructuring the debt is meant to give the chain breathing room, but it comes at the price of a smaller store network.
The filing places At Home among a long line of retailers that expanded aggressively and then found the debt unmanageable once conditions turned. Home-goods sellers have been hit particularly hard as households postpone furniture and renovation spending, leaving chains that bet on steady demand exposed when that demand cooled.
What liquidation sales mean for shoppers
For customers, a closing store usually brings deep clearance discounts, but the savings come with conditions worth knowing. Going-out-of-business sales are typically final, meaning returns and exchanges stop, and prices that look steep at first often deepen only in the final weeks as the store races to clear inventory. A shopper eyeing a marked-down sofa trades the chance of a lower price later against the risk that the item sells out first.
Gift cards and store credit carry the sharper risk. Once a location shuts, redeeming a card can become difficult, and bankruptcy can limit the window for honoring outstanding balances. Anyone holding an At Home gift card has a clear incentive to use it before the closing sales end rather than let it sit and risk losing the value entirely.
The broader loss lands on the communities that are down another affordable retailer. Each shuttered warehouse removes a low-cost option for furnishing a home, along with the jobs the store supported, and often leaves a large vacancy in a shopping center that can drag on nearby businesses. The open question is whether At Home’s slimmed-down network can hold steady after bankruptcy, or whether the count of closed stores keeps climbing past 32 before the restructuring is done.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed against primary sources by The Money Overview editorial team.
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