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Window shopping: Classic luggage and transport themes can send any room on a journey

 

Trish Lorenz
Friday 03 February 2012 01:00 GMT
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Whether you're a frequent flier or an armchair adventurer, a travel-inspired interior will not only remind you of past journeys and inspire future jaunts, it will also make the comforts of home feel a little more exciting.

It can be about reappropriating vintage travel-related objects. Think vintage leather suitcases turned into drawers (done particularly beautifully, though expensively, as they are made to order by jamesplumb.co.uk); old wooden luggage chests (see above) as coffee tables or blanket boxes; or well-worn wooden paddles simply propped decoratively against a wall (pedlars.co.uk currently has a gorgeous selection, if you're feeling flush).

Alternatively, the theme simply can be about celebrating the pleasing forms of things that run on wheels, rudders, propellers – or even hot air, in the form of travel-inspired artwork, textiles and accessories. And, often, the best-looking examples hark back to an age when transport design was less about speed and more about style.

A perfect example comes from the London Transport Museum, which this week launched a set of limited-edition curved-aluminium luggage racks from its decommissioned 1960s' Metropolitan Line trains. Along with more about those, here is our pick of beautiful, yet affordable, travel-themed homewares to capture the excitement of setting off on a journey – even if you're going no further than your sofa.

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