Most-transporting home goods
For many visitors to the wonderfully renovated Peabody Essex Museum, its new centerpiece exhibit - a centuries-old ancestral home brought from China and reassembled inside the museum - is transporting. Evocative of a distant land and a sublime aesthetic, it inspires an appreciation for all things Eastern. It's easy to imagine how Chinese goods caught the fancy of Americans in the early days of the sea trade.

To bring home exotic evidence of the worlds beyond our shores, you need look no further than the Peabody Essex Museum Shop. Glass bowls in vibrant colors such as tangerine and teal, lacquer-ware coasters that seem to glide on the surface of a table, richly detailed woven pillows - the shop's offerings go far beyond standard museum fare, into the realm of elegant home décor. Bring a little Zen gracefulness to your tiny condo with a single piece, or transform an entire room into a silk-trader's bazaar. Best of all, you'll support the arts with every purchase.

Peabody Essex Museum, East India Square, Salem, (978) 745-9500, www.pem.org.