So far, I’ve seen about fifteen properties in Portugal — which means fifteen times I’ve tried to picture my future self greeting guests at the door while also wondering if my daughter will hate me for moving her to the middle of nowhere.
The one that got away? Seen in the background of this picture with my friends. A house at the top of a hill that checked every single dream-box. Dinner outdoors under the stars. A tiny lake at the bottom of the hill (not ours, but close enough to pretend). Light pouring into every room. And finishes so tasteful you could tell the couple who owned it before had built a hostel empire in Lisbon. The problem? Beautiful home, zero business opportunity. It was the fantasy, not the reality.
The biggest surprise about house-hunting here compared to D.C.? In Portugal, you can tour a castle at 10 a.m. and a bungalow by noon, all within the same five-mile radius. In D.C., the row homes are gorgeous but they’re basically copy-paste. Portugal’s housing market feels like it’s curated by someone with a sense of humor.
The high point was when my realtor called and said, “You need to get here ASAP. They just dropped the price.” I literally dropped everything and ran. The low point was realizing that price drop was a gimmick — a bait-and-switch meant to stir up a bidding war. It didn’t work for them, but they strung us along anyway.
Through all of this, Marco and I have stayed mostly aligned. Mostly. He’s the water-supply-and-electricity guy, and I’m over here pointing at the crown moulding. It works, but let’s just say our tours are… spirited.
Some highlights: an entire room devoted to a woman’s shoe collection (truly a Portuguese Imelda Marcos moment). A bougainvillea-draped entrance that had me mentally signing the deed on the spot. And dealbreakers? Anything with zero potential. I can fall in love with a crumbling barn, but not with hopelessness.
Why do this at all? For the adventure. For my family. To slow down, spend more time with my daughter, and build something together that feels alive.
Meanwhile, in D.C., we teamed up with our friend Libby to create a flower pop-up built entirely out of old cardboard boxes. The kind of project that proves you don’t need a dream property to start experimenting — just a little imagination, a good collaborator, and a willingness to see potential where others might not. Whether it’s a rundown barn in Portugal or a stack of discarded cardboard, that’s the through-line: turning what’s in front of us into something surprising, something worth gathering around.
