She Lived Gently. But Never Small.
Jane Austen never left England.
She rarely traveled, never married, and lived much of her life in quiet domestic spaces — yet her words have crossed oceans and centuries.
She was not loud. But she was not invisible.
Through wit, wisdom, and fierce intelligence, Jane claimed life in her own elegant, deliberate way.
She did it by observing. Writing. Resisting and and choosing stillness over noise.
“My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation.”
What Does It Mean to Claim Life Like Jane?
To live like Jane is to find power in your presence.
To notice more. Speak thoughtfully. Choose your own rhythm.
To create a world where depth and softness are not opposites.
Modern women don’t need to escape to a country estate to claim their life —
but they can begin by creating a space that reflects their inner world.
It starts with intention.
And maybe a bit of lavender.
✧ Step Into Jane’s World: The Light Academia Life
We now invite you to step through a sensory portal — to imagine, decorate, feel, and design your spaces as Jane might have.
Each part of her life becomes a space you can recreate.
We walk into her world, room by room — with Pinterest visuals, décor guides.
1. The Garden – Touch the Lavender
A guide to creating a Jane-inspired Light Academia garden✧ Sensory notes: Feel the leaves, smell the lavender
Planting a Lavender garden
✧ Planting a Lavender Garden Like Jane Austen
An Invitation to Stillness, Scent, and Softness
“To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.” — Jane Austen
There is something quietly revolutionary about planting a lavender garden. In Jane Austen’s time, such acts were not simply practical — they were poetic. Lavender was used to calm nerves, scent linens, and bring beauty to the everyday.
To garden like Jane is to reclaim peace. To choose stillness. And to cultivate grace, one root at a time.
✧ Why Lavender?
Lavender is timeless — gentle, fragrant, and hardy.
It thrives in well-drained soil and sunlight, much like quiet thoughts need space to bloom.
“Plant with space to breathe — much like a heroine’s thoughts.”
Lavender calls bees and butterflies to your garden, encourages you to linger longer, and brings elegance to the most humble corner of earth.
✧ How to Plant Lavender Like Jane
Step 1: Choose Your Variety
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English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) is best — romantic, resilient, and richly scented.
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Look for varieties like ‘Hidcote’ or ‘Munstead’ for compact blooms.
Step 2: Prepare the Ground
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Find a sunny spot (at least 6 hours of sunlight a day)
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Use well-draining soil or a raised bed
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Mix in a bit of sand or gravel for extra drainage — lavender dislikes soggy roots
Step 3: Plant with Intention
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Space plants about 30–40 cm (12–16 inches) apart
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Water lightly after planting, then sparingly as they grow
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Speak kindly while you plant — Jane would
✧ Caring for Your Lavender
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Water sparingly — once established, lavender prefers dry roots
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Prune lightly after blooming to shape and encourage future growth
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Harvest in the morning, just before full bloom — this is when the scent is most concentrated
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Dry upside-down in small bundles for sachets, tea blends, or drawer fresheners
✧ Gentle Uses for Your Lavender
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Tuck dried lavender into linen drawers
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Add to bath salts or sleep pillows
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Make lavender water for your pillowcase
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Steep in hot water for a calming tea
✧ Final Thought
To plant lavender is to claim a quieter life.
To nurture beauty not for display, but for delight.
To live as Jane did — intentionally, gently, and always with a bit of poetry in the air.
2. The Kitchen – Smell the Scones
A warm, inviting kitchen filled with copper, herbs, and stoneware
✧ Sensory notes: The scent of scones baking, the sound of teacups clinking
Scone recipe + Jane’s favorite teas + essential tools
✧ Jane Austen Scones
An Elegant Tea-Time Recipe
“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.” — Jane Austen
These classic English scones are light, flaky, and perfect for a gentle morning or an afternoon retreat with a pot of tea and a favorite novel.
✧ Ingredients:
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2 cups all-purpose flour
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1/4 cup granulated sugar
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1 tablespoon baking powder
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1/2 teaspoon salt
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1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
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2/3 cup whole milk
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1 egg (for brushing the tops)
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(Optional: a handful of dried currants or a whisper of lemon zest)
✧ Instructions:
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Preheat your oven to 200°C (400°F). Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
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In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
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Add the cold, cubed butter. Use your fingertips or a pastry cutter to rub it into the flour until it resembles coarse crumbs.
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Gently pour in the milk. Stir just until a dough forms — don’t overmix.
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Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Pat it into a 1-inch thick round.
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Use a round cutter to cut out scones. Press straight down — no twisting.
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Place the scones on the tray and brush the tops with beaten egg for a golden finish.
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Bake for 12–15 minutes or until just golden.
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Serve warm, split open with clotted cream and strawberry jam.
✧ Tea Pairing:
A pot of Darjeeling or Earl Grey complements these scones with grace and subtlety. Add a lace napkin, a Jane Austen quote, and a gentle pause in your day.
3. The Lounge – Smell the Books
Rich textures, velvet chairs, and shelves lined with leather-bound novels
✧ Sensory notes: Smell the aged paper, run fingers over linen pages
✧ Jane Austen’s Favorite and Influential Books
A Literary Glimpse into the Mind Behind Pride & Prejudice
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” — Northanger Abbey
1. Samuel Richardson – Sir Charles Grandison
A multi-volume epistolary novel. Austen adored Richardson’s moral narratives and even wrote her own parody of this book as a teen.
She once said her family considered Sir Charles Grandison “a very favorite work.”
2. Fanny Burney – Evelina
This witty, socially observant novel about a young woman navigating society influenced Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey.
Jane admired Burney’s blend of satire, innocence, and romance.
3. Henry Fielding – Tom Jones
Though more bawdy than Austen’s own writing, she enjoyed Fielding’s energy, humor, and storycraft.
She borrowed his use of irony and narrative interjection.
4. Charlotte Lennox – The Female Quixote
A humorous critique of women who let romantic novels shape their expectations of life — a theme echoed in Northanger Abbey.
5. Ann Radcliffe – The Mysteries of Udolpho
The quintessential Gothic novel, loved (and gently mocked) by Austen. Catherine Morland, heroine of Northanger Abbey, devours this book.
“Udolpho” was Austen’s loving critique of over-the-top sentimentality.
6. Shakespeare’s Plays
Jane Austen quoted and referenced Shakespeare often — especially Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night.
She read aloud to her family and drew inspiration from his dialogue and romantic entanglements.
7. Dr. Johnson’s The Rambler and The Idler
Austen admired Samuel Johnson’s essays, language, and moral clarity.
His influence can be seen in her wit and precision.
8. Maria Edgeworth – Belinda
Austen praised Edgeworth’s intelligence and storytelling. Edgeworth, in turn, read and respected Austen’s work.
They were contemporaries who shaped early women’s literature.
✧ Bonus: Jane’s Own Library
Jane’s father owned a library of over 500 books. Jane, her sister Cassandra, and their brothers were encouraged to read widely — including history, poetry, travel writing, and sermons.
She even translated French and Italian for fun.
4. The Bedroom – Breathe the Stillness
✧ Sensory notes: The hush of early morning, scent of lavender water
✧ How to Use This Series:
- Browse the Pinterest boards linked in each post
- Let each space remind you to slow down and see your life
- Write. Garden. Bake. Breathe.
- And most of all: live — gently, but fully
With love,
Amanda
Claiming Life
✧ Claiming Life Through History – A sensory lifestyle project inspired by extraordinary women and everyday magic.
“Decorating Like Jane: Light Academia for the Modern Romantic”
A journey into timeless elegance, lived slowly.
✧ Introduction: Light Academia, the Austen Way
There is a world where time slows, candles flicker softly at dusk, and books are read not for speed — but for soul.
That world is Light Academia. And Jane Austen would have understood it perfectly.
This style is not just an aesthetic — it’s a philosophy.
It celebrates the pursuit of beauty, the love of literature, and the quiet rhythm of days filled with thought, texture, and meaning.
To decorate in the Light Academia tradition is to choose intention over excess, wisdom over trend, softness over spectacle.
It’s tea in porcelain cups.
A writing desk by the window.
Pressed flowers in old books.
It’s lace curtains that let the light linger longer.
And it is utterly Jane.
“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” — Jane Austen
This series invites you into rooms she might have written in —
the dining space where she might have debated poetry, the bedroom where dreams formed like ink on a page,
and the corner nook where a young woman with a quill rewrote the role of heroine forever.
We decorate not to impress — but to feel.
To claim life, gently.
✧ Coming Up in the Series:
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The Dining Room: A Place of Grace and Quiet Conversation
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The Bedroom: A Retreat of Stillness and Paper
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The Writing Nook: Where Heroines Are Born
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Bonus: How to Create a Light Academia Bookshelf with Jane’s Favorites
✧ Jane Austen’s Home in Light Academia
Aesthetic Notes for a Gentle, Bookish, Feminine Interior
The Dining Room — “A Place of Grace and Quiet Conversation”
Color Palette:
Cream, walnut brown, faded sage, and dusty rose accents
Key Elements:
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A wooden farmhouse-style table, slightly worn from decades of family meals
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Mismatched antique dining chairs with carved backs and floral cushions
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A silver tea service displayed on a sideboard
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Delicate white muslin curtains tied back with ribbon
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Botanical prints or pressed herbs in gold oval frames
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A candle chandelier with beeswax tapers
Atmosphere:
A space to gather, laugh softly, pass scones, and debate poetry over lavender tea. A fresh bouquet from the garden in a porcelain vase sits in the center, always.
The Bedroom — “A Retreat of Stillness and Paper”
Color Palette:
Ivory, dove grey, faded lilac, and soft blush
Key Elements:
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Four-poster bed draped in light linen or muslin
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A lace coverlet and a hand-embroidered pillow with a literary quote
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A writing desk beneath the window, quill and inkwell beside a journal
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Candles in brass holders, placed near the bed and window
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A well-worn copy of Fanny Burney tucked by the bedside
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Floor-length curtains with floral brocade (subtle and romantic)
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Framed Jane Austen quotes or botanical engravings
Atmosphere:
A place for reflection, slow mornings, and handwritten letters. Lavender sachets in the drawers, the scent of rosewater on the pillow.
The Study Nook / Writing Corner — “Where Heroines Are Born”
Color Palette:
Parchment, forest green, deep plum, ink black accents
Key Elements:
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A spindle-back wooden chair and a fold-top writing desk
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An open journal beside an ink pot and glass paperweight
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A stack of favorite books bound in leather and linen
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A botanical print pinned to the wall above the desk
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Candlestick holder with wax drips beside a pair of wire spectacles
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A soft rug underfoot and a feather tucked into a drawer
Atmosphere:
Quiet focus. The tick of a clock. The rustle of paper. The room feels as if it’s waiting for the next thought to arrive.
✧ Light Academia Textures for Jane’s Home:
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Linen, lace, muslin
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Oak, walnut, and cherry woods
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Paper, parchment, wax, brass
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Dried lavender, bundled herbs, pressed flowers
✧ Light Academia Quote for the Hallway:
“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.”
— Jane Austen
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