Over the Christmas holiday in 2013, Mike and I visited Goodwill. We had just drained our bank accounts buying our first home together, a 1912 foursquare with a complicated past (single family home turned duplex turned daycare, what appeared to be an original 1912 kitchen, a primary bedroom without a door, the list goes on). We chose to ignore most of it.
On that trip to Goodwill we picked up a large scale portrait of a Matador for $14.00. It moved from room to room in the house as I would redecorate on a whim over weekends when I needed to decompress from work. Visitors to our house would ask about the matador. We had named him Benny Gomez after a bullfighter Mike and I saw in Madrid many years earlier on our first trip to Europe together. One visitor said ‘ah it is a Barbara Weber, she’s famous’ after seeing the artist’s signature in the corner. I just thought it was a joke about my Goodwill find and laughed it off. But as it turns out these are kind of a collectible to certain mid century art enthusiasts and regarded as a cultural relic by others.
Five years and one child later we moved one block up the street. We bought our current house mostly because of the yard. It is a double lot in the city with a towering Western Red Cedar that belongs in a national park but casually just shades our house in the summers. But also because the previous owners had taken excellent care of it and updated it in 2010 (which back in 2018 was not that long ago). The kitchen was updated, the bathrooms updated, the basement finished and the fact that none of it was dealing with the complicated identity based trauma of being a daycare or divided into a duplex. It was just a blue Dutch Colonial with a big yard built in 1925.
We brought the Matador with us when we moved in 2018 and hung him immediately at the entry. A warm, familiar, smiling face to greet us every time we came home. He also stands firm as a reminder of our decorating philosophy: never serious, never trendy, almost always secondhand.
In that spirit, here’s a tour of the things in our living room that stop me in my tracks. Everything you’re about to see is unshoppable. Not because I’m gatekeeping—there genuinely are no links. Most of these things came from somewhere that doesn’t exist anymore, my own two hands, or a fancy lady’s estate sale. Rest in peace, fancy ladies.
I'm going to take you through this house room by room, because each one deserves its own moment for all the stories and all the finds. Today: the living room. Coming eventually: a kitchen that has had some DIY glow ups, a dining room that works overtime: home office by day, homework central at night and Gingerbread house HQ come the holidays. A basement that is somehow both chaos and core memory. We start here, where the Matador welcomes you and directs you to your left.
Before we begin here is a listing photo from 2018. Please orient yourself with that window at the back of the room and see the solution below in item 4. Enjoy!
This room is large. It took me years to find the right rug for the space. But today the star of the show and what is holding us down right now is this living room rug from an estate sale. A mid century in Portland’s West Hills that was outfitted with an amazing collection of vintage European dish-ware (wait for the kitchen tour!), paintings and antiques. The rug I saw on the first day of the sale and was able to return Sunday when everything was half off. I was so grateful to see that it was still available. 1b) The petite card table in the corner of the room, seen below, is from this same sale. It folds out and opens to a felted green surface for games. Both were acquired in 2022.
1- the rug, 1a- the petite table in the back corner, 2- the cb2 sofa via fb marketplace, 3- the coffee table from offer up - all co existing together The sofa is a CB2 one I had seen across the internet in 2024. It was ranked for its sexy lines and playful form. It must have etched itself into my brain because when I saw it come up on Facebook Marketplace last summer I immediately messaged the seller. It did not fit in the woman’s house and it replaced a yellow vintage velvet one we had bought for $500 in 2018 from the beloved shop Midnight Sunlight, IYKYK. I love the lines and form of this new one. And the simplicity of the cushions. Acquired in 2025.
The coffee table came from OfferUp for $30. It hit two prerequisites of mine: LARGE and Glass/ mixed materials. Acquired in 2019.
Look above at the too small window that use to be here. These french doors really make this room sing now. We keep them often early all summer long. The French Doors I found at a salvage shop in summer 2020. Interior doors repurposed as something they weren't meant to be, shhh. Our brother-in-law installed them, we've weather-stripped the heck out of them, and we've looked at replacing them with the real deal. The price tag cured us of that idea pretty quickly.
5- the ceramic little person. The bowl atop his head is most often storage for loose legos and pokemon cards. This ceramic figure sits on a thrifted credenza we bought in 2014. The figure is a piece from Mexico’s famed Lagunilla market. A weekly vintage fair Sundays in the city. I loved the figure itself but also the semi drippy water color glaze. I packed it in a suitcase one year and brought it back to have a piece of Mexico here in Portland. Acquired 2021.
6- THE painting The most complimented thing in our house is this painting. I painted it and I'm still figuring out how to say that confidently when people ask. After years of searching for something big enough to anchor this room I woke up one morning and just decided to DIY. Forty-eight hours later we had this now iconic—read: it was featured in a Dwell spread, piece of art.
This house and the items in it have come together over time. It won’t ever be finished and it won’t ever be perfect. The Matador has been watching over it all since 2013. Through the foursquare, the move, the pandemic, the years in Mexico and back again. He's seen every version of this home and this family. I think he’s proud of us.
Thanks for reading. If you like this kind of storytelling I might consider sharing another room or collection of items soon. What's the most unshoppable thing in your home? The thing with a story nobody could recreate? Please share in the comments, I love these stories.
And if you liked this then be sure to check out these two posts here and here on my instagram :)
Thanks so much for reading xx LL
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