At home with Jane Austen

A cottage in Birmingham, in a perfect English country style, blends the past and the present by offering many reading “incentives”.

England, a cottage nestled in the countryside, out of the window green abundant, and a profusion of trees. It’s time for tea, of course accompanied by sandwiches and cookies. Sit composed, as you do when you are in the presence of someone. That someone is Jane Austen. And you have so many questions and ideas going on in your head not knowing where to begin. You’re silent, sip your tea ashamed of your omnipresent shyness. Or at least, you think it is that.

I hope it’s that. Because I’m wrong, I know. I packed the head of words but when I need, I can’t find them. I live perpetually in the absence of words, but perhaps Jane would help me break the ice.

No, I’m not crazy (or at least I hope that), but this English cottage reminded me her, the writer with a capital “W”. I would have liked to meet her here, in the house of the architect James F. Carter, in his native England, in the countryside.

She’d be fine here, for many reasons. Because in this house there are a lot of libraries, because there is a desk facing the window, because it is full of fragrant flowers, because it’s bright and because everything is in a perfect country English style.

I’m not a person who goes crazy for the “traditional”. It is probably the furthest thing from me but this cottage has something that fascinates me terribly. As the deep blue used to dress up the kitchen, as some doors or the checkerboard floor, or the arrangement of pictures on the walls.

There are many beautiful ideas to steal in this house, but seeing is believing.

Images via: habituallychic.luxury