Creating a Jane Austen Inspired Regency Salon | Light Academia Comes to Life

Walk through the step-by-step transformation of a plain green room into an ethereal, elegant Jane Austen inspired dining salon, using thrifted finds, easy designer tricks, and a lovely blue, white and silver color scheme.

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This room is located directly off the front hall of the house, just to the right of the staircase. It had fantastic bones, with a glass French door, gothic window arches, and a beautiful original fireplace surrounded by this vibrant green tile, but you can see that when I arrived, it wasn’t being used to its full potential.

After its makeover, this room became the backdrop for all sorts of literary-themed events, from midnight dinners, to themed tea parties, and even writing & art classes led by local authors and artists.

You can tell why the previous owners chose this green paint for the walls, thinking it would match the fireplace surround, but their choice of decor was a little chaotic, and too busy for my taste.

For my purposes, I needed the space to be more neutral and flexible, so we could temporarily decorate over and over for our events in any theme or color, and not feel like we were fighting against the wall color.

As I’ve mentioned previously, decorating a “blank canvas” of a room happens in five layers:

• Your background

• Large furniture

• Accent furniture

• Lighting

• Accessories

1. The Background

So the first thing I did to begin the transformation of this room was to paint it a cool blue with grey tones in it. Blue and green complement each other really nicely, so the fireplace blended right in, and the light blue shade contrasted well against the dark brown woodwork and helped to highlight the windows.

I knew I wanted to build this room around blues, specifically because I was inspired by Regency era artwork like this. I love how delicate the light colors are, and I wanted to make good use of silver and white lace to create the kind of gentle, graceful space that Jane Austen would recognize.