Life Lately (Portland, Anthropologie, Home Projects)

by Melissa @ The Inspired Room | Jun 10, 2022 | Behind the scenes!, Decorating Inspiration, feature, My Life, My New House

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Life Lately (Portland, Anthropologie, Home Projects)

Hello, friends! It’s been awhile since I did a Life Lately post. There is so much going on in life and around our home these days that is sometimes hard to keep up with sharing it all. But a Life Lately post is a fun way to catch up and also to honor and remember all the little (and big!) moments that make life lovely.

So today I’ll share a bit of our trip to Portland last week, you can come along with our visit to Anthropologie (it’s been awhile since I shopped in person there!) take a peek into a couple of our remodeling decisions and a few every day happenings around the house.

Courtney and I took a weekend trip to Portland visit her sister Kylee (our oldest daughter)! We hung out at her darling home, did a photoshoot for upcoming projects and just enjoyed some time together. Courtney is getting married this summer (wow, it’s coming up so fast now!) so it was fun to plan and shop for that, too.

We visited our old hometown farmer’s market and drove by almost all of our previous homes (I’ll share one of them in an upcoming post, it’s fun to reminisce!). It is bittersweet to go home. Someone questioned me once why I call Portland “home” but yet we chose to live here in Washington. I do believe you can feel at home in one place where you have so many memories and experiences and family, and yet truly love where you live now. Someone else described the sensation of having their heart in one place and soul in another. It’s not easy to feel at home in two places, but you have to learn to bloom where you are planted now, even if you were uprooted from a place you also love at some other point in your life.

Life doesn’t always wrap up everything you love in a perfect bow, you know? But now we have two places we can call home and we love them for different reasons. Gratefully they are not too far apart and we have family in each place, so we enjoy time in both!

We stopped in Anthropologie while we were with Kylee, it’s been such a long time since I was there!

I’m quite accustomed to being an online shopper now, but there’s nothing quite as fun as being IN a store and experiencing everything in person. I’ll share a few things that caught my eye while we were there and then I’ll catch you up on a few happenings with our remodel , too.

I bought the prettiest dress at Anthro–I had ordered it online awhile back since I know I’ll be wearing a lot of dresses this summer and with the wedding there are more events and opportunities to look cute :). I’ll give you the link here but if you’ll be hanging out with me this summer you might want to get something else so we don’t show up with the same dress LOL. I love it because it’s youthful and fun but also feels like me hahaha. Although honestly I had to ask my girls if it was too cute for my age but of course they rolled their eyes and set me straight.

Getting older is a weird thing. In my mind I’m still 16 years young, but I know I’ve advanced in age since then (and size lol but hopefully also maturity). While I’m not sure how older gals are supposed to dress, I don’t want to settle into being a frumpy older woman ha! It’s fine. I’m still the same ol’ me. In high school I LOVED wearing dresses and buying cute clothes was my favorite hobby :). While most days I’m just in mom jeans and sneakers, it’s been fun buying dresses for summer.

On the way home from Portland we stopped at Trader Joe’s to shop with my college son Luke. They always have such pretty flowers, but all he wanted was food so we bought a lot of that :). I wish we had remembered to take a photo with him, he’s just so cute! We are so proud of him for enduring the craziness of college and all that came with it through the pandemic, too. He went back to in person school this last year, gratefully, and is living with friends off campus. We sure miss him but I’m glad he’s close enough to visit and can come home, too, any time.

We also stopped to look at flooring samples in Seattle! I’m so excited about new floors! Neither of these samples are exactly what we are getting but they are close. We are going with a casual beachy vibe for the floors, one that can hold up to sandy feet and dogs. It’s a big investment to change out flooring in an entire house but with the kitchen remodel it really makes sense to do it all at once and be done with it. If you missed my posts about the remodel, you can catch up in this post where I shared some of our plans, and our ‘before’ house tour here.

Meanwhile back at home we are going to have fun this summer adding plants and window boxes! We got three of these planter boxes for our front porch railings. The best deal is the set of two, so if you want multiples make sure you double check that you are getting them in sets. I accidentally ordered ONE the first time, but it turned out to be a happy accident. We decided we’d keep it and order the set of two so we have three now. One for the side and two for the front. (The picture above is before we hung them, my husband was holding them up for me to see!). Can’t wait to plant them! I don’t know if I’ve ever had window boxes? I’ve always wanted them.

There will be quite a few updates to our home as we go through this process. We’ve been meeting with our contractor and architectural designer to make sure the addition on the back for my parents will fit with the style of the home and neighborhood as well as meet their needs! I’ll be able to update you on our plans very soon. We even have plans for this side of the house here that I cannot wait to share with you.

The dogs are loving life here. Napping all day in between adventures outside. What a life!

I love coming out to the front porch for my morning coffee! My white adirondack chairs here are on sale and come in several colors, I also have them in a rocking chair version!

With the release of my newest book, A Lovely Life (on sale for the lowest price I’ve seen right now on Amazon), I’ve had so many wonderful comments from this community, people who appreciate the perspective of finding joy and beauty in the every day happenings around us.

With social media as it is, we are often surrounded by people doing bigger and better things, many of which might be unattainable or not sustainable. While it’s fun to be inspired by the lives of others, it’s also refreshing to remember that the foundation of our own Lovely Life is always within our reach. No matter what is going on around us, the essence of a lovely life is something we can create for ourselves in such simple ways. If you resonate with that perspective and a slower pace of life, and if you get the book, I would LOVE to hear from you! Your messages and reviews have been so kind! It’s so encouraging to me to find others who also want to experience peace and beauty in the ordinary every day moments.