What You Can Expect from the Best Home Decor Stores in Portland

From Modern to Reclaimed - A Guide to Portland’s Interior Design Accessory Shops  

Somehow, over the last couple of decades, along with establishing itself as a hub for indie music, the DIY mentality, and innovative cooking, Portland has also gained quite the reputation as a design hot spot. And for anyone immersed in the design community over this time, it’s not really that much of a surprise.  

For several years now, Portland has been attracting young designers for the same reasons that the city attracts young creative chefs, musicians, artists, and writers. It’s a fantastic place to live and still quite reasonable when compared to similar cities in the US.

Thankfully, along with this incursion of young talent has come a blossoming of the local retail resources that this talent relies upon for supplies, inspiration, and a place to showcase their work. This is especially true of the growing home decor store scene in the city.

Typical of Portland – right alongside the new – the old Portland home decor standouts are still finding a way to thrive in a rapidly changing environment. If you are new to town, or haven’t taken the time to check out what the City of Roses has to offer in terms of home decor stores, this post should give you the basics on what to expect from the new crop of shops, as well as some of the old guard. 

The New Guard – Canoe, The Good Mod, Hive

If you’re looking for high design items presented in a high-design showroom, then these three quintessential new Portland home decor shops are the places to go. While they may reflect the aspirational nature of the city’s design scene (somewhat), they are also helping to drive the design renaissance happening all around us.  

Canoe

Canoe, located on SW 10th Avenue in Downtown, embodies the new Portland home to the point that it’s almost stereotypical, albeit comfortably so. Portland loves function coupled with form, subdued color schemes, and natural materials, after all. Suffice it to say, this is a fantastic place to shop for beautiful objects of that nature to fill up your home.  

The Good Mod

At 13th and West Burnside, this design-forward home decor shop features items from world-class design icons like Svensson, Saarinen, and the like. The space is 20,000 square feet of industrial loft that includes several modernist interiors and a team that does both restoration and custom design work.

Hive

Hive is a modern home decor store, sure, but alongside selling some of the world’s top interior and furniture designers, it also takes its mission to welcome and educate the public at its 8th and NW Glisan showroom very seriously. Good design and an education in good design at the same time – very Portland, indeed!   

The Old Guard - Rejuvenation and Hippo Hardware

Rejuvenation

The original Rejuvenation, now the headquarters of an empire on Southeast Grand Avenue, was once just a lighting store. Now, this one location is 10,000 square feet of furniture, hardware, and home decor, giving Portlanders more options for fixing up their homes than they could possibly imagine. The shop is a one-stop destination for folks, and even has an in-house cafe.  

Hippo Hardware

If you want to see Old Portland design (and architectural salvage) in all its faded but charming glory, Hippo Hardware on East Burnside and Tenth is the place. A hardware store that feels more like a curiosity shop, Hippo is still a great place for “finding” old school design pieces alongside things they whip up out of spare parts, onsite.

Home Decor in Portland

Of course, this post is far from comprehensive; every high street in the city – and there are many these days – has a home decor shop of some sort. So, whether you’re out looking for a piece to complete the look, a specific object designed by a world-renowned designer, or a piece of salvage to restore your home, Portland has it somewhere. And you can only imagine what else you might find while looking for it!  

[image via: Rejuvenation]