Find part one of this post Staircases & Big Steps here.
In 2009 we took a leap of faith, moving from what we hoped would be our forever home in Portland to a small town in Washington to start a church. If you followed Love the Home You Have, you may have read the stories of our many moves and the events that led us here. The Inspired Room began modestly in our 1930s English Tudor in Portland. For the past six years, however, we’ve lived in Washington while running The Inspired Room and the church.
The move was harder than we expected. Portland had been home. The move separated our family—our middle daughter Courtney stayed behind to finish school, our oldest daughter Kylee was in college in Oregon, and our son came with us alone. We arrived without knowing anyone and worked hard to build a new life and get established. After years of effort, we finally began to feel settled.
Eventually our daughters moved to Washington for school (YAY), but they settled in Seattle—over an hour away (BOO). We were grateful to be close enough to visit, but the distance kept us from seeing one another as often as we wanted.
Fast forward to today: a lot has changed. Courtney and I now work full time together running The Inspired Room. We love collaborating, yet she still lives over an hour away by ferry. We commute by ferry as often as we can, but the distance, cost, and logistics drain time and creative energy we could spend working together.
Kylee and her husband both work full time at Amazon, and although she wants to help, coordinating time to collaborate is difficult. Travel cuts into the limited hours she has after work or on weekends.
It’s normal for kids to leave for college, marry, and start lives of their own—no! stop! wahhh!—but there’s something special about having family nearby when you genuinely enjoy spending time together. We willingly sacrificed a lot to move here, but six years on we long for spontaneous weeknight dinners, impromptu home projects, and spur-of-the-moment coffee or shopping trips on Saturdays.
Beyond convenience, there’s sadness that our son didn’t live closer to his sisters during much of his childhood. Amazingly, all three kids—and Kylee’s husband Lance—have remained very close. We feel grateful they could spend quality time together despite years of ferry travel and distance.
Our son has grown up here—from an adorable eight-year-old to a fourteen-year-old young man—and it feels like his childhood flew by. He’s finishing eighth grade and will start high school this fall. Realizing that he’d spent the past six years living much of his daily life as an only child made us consider a move to Seattle so he could spend the next four years closer to his sisters.
OH MY HEART. When my husband and I pictured the difference being near our daughters could make for our son—day to day, in friendships, in simple moments—there was no other choice. As a mother, I want this for him more than anything over the next four years. Our girls want it for our family too.
I love the home we’ve created here and wish I could stay and enjoy it for years—that was the plan. I look around and feel wistful thinking of leaving it. But a large part of our heart is missing here. If we take the leap and move, we can bring our family closer after six years apart, and that thought brings comfort and peace about the decision.
At first I worried whether our son would want to change schools. Moving and adapting to a new school is always tough for kids, but after shadowing at a potential new school he surprised us by liking it—one less fear.
A move to Seattle won’t be easy or stress-free. Seattle is expensive and the housing market is competitive. We want to live within a 15-minute drive of the girls, so we’ve narrowed down neighborhoods, but what kind of house can we afford? That uncertainty is daunting.
Another challenge: our lives would flip. Our church is here, and my husband is committed to pastoring. If we move, he would commute for meetings while the girls and I would have more weekday hours together to work on The Inspired Room, increasing our productivity without lengthy commutes. We’d still prioritize church on Sundays. The Puget Sound commute can be difficult, but the ferry is beautiful and peaceful—small consolation, but one we appreciate.
What eases my worry is remembering this move isn’t just about houses or neighborhoods. We’d be moving to our family. That goal makes the trade-offs worthwhile. We don’t know the exact neighborhood or the house we’ll find, and we have no grand plans beyond being together. But turning any house into a home for family is rewarding, and that faith helps steady us as we consider the next step.
There’s more to tell, and I’ll share all the feelings that come with moving and leaving this home another time. For now, thank you for following along in these house adventures—you’ve been the best company.