Magic Portals

At some point in their life, everyone has daydreamed of possessing a magic portal that could instantly whisk you away towards another time or place; an escape hatch that would allow you to leave your troubles behind and step into a new world or adventure.

As a child, I would make sofa cushion forts and clubhouses from discarded appliance boxes. Then as a teen, I tacked sheets to the ceiling around my bed and strung up Christmas lights inside, to create a separate area within my bedroom. Of course these places had no special properties and they didn't actually transport me anywhere, but the sheer act of passing through into a portal would transform my mind enough to make the real world seem farther away and allow me to enter a world of my own creation.  

As an adult, this concept constantly shows up in my decorating behaviour. My sleeping areas are still decidedly cavelike, I champion reading nooks and napping corners, and given half the chance I will always break up a space with furniture, to create a room within a room.  

Looking back at interiors from the 70s and 80s, you'll find that the portal theme was very relevant and very literal. Here portals are used in the same manner – to transform space, add excitement, and transport the occupant into another state of mind. We see portals being used to emphasise storage shelving, to delineate room breaks and to add intrigue to a window's view. They're even used purely as decoration, to give a slight view from one room into another, without any real function besides adding interest to the environment. 

The only difference between the portals of the past pictured here, versus the portals I pass through now, is that today’s portal are not so literal – now they merely allude to via the feeling you have inside that transformative space. With square footage at a premium, I usually cannot justify the creation of walls that are not necessary, or of physically breaking up an open space. That being said, these 10 vintage interiors are amazing enough to make me rethink my stance, pull inspiration from the living room fort, and put the physicality back into my present day portals.