Miss Austen Regrets was on TV last night. As always the settings of country mansions, parkland etc were beautiful and Olivia Williams as JA was good but . . . I found it difficult to follow the 'plot', such as it was, and was confused by all the young men Jane flirted with. At 40 years old she was well over middle age by the standards of those days and my, didn't she hit the bottle. I understand that her sister burnt most of her letters and I'm sure Jane would have never started so many sentences with "Oh my God!" Very modern. btw the actress, Phyllida Law, who played JA's mother is 'in real life' the mother of Emma Thompsom.

Sewing is very popular in Australia. Plenty of places to buy machines, fabrics and general haberdashery. I don't sew now but used to make clothes for my daughter, mainly simple sleeveless shifts which were from an easy pattern and could be adapted to use small remnants which were sold cheaply. It is now so reasonable to buy children's clothes from China that it isn't worth the bother! I made a couple of Regency items for our 150th Anniversary of settlement in Western Australia but cheated by remodelling a Laura Ashley print long dress and cut up another short one for a spenser. A straw sunhat cut and resewn at the back to a bonnet shape with long ribbons completed the outfit! I was so lucky in Bath getting to stay in a room in the Royal Crescent and being shown over the house with its curved sitting room. I felt like a Heyer heroine!

Looks like the past home owners were going for a transitional look, but ended up with a weird hybrid of transitional/eclectic. Nothing inherently wrong with it I guess and looking at it. It doesn't seem you would have to do anything really extensive to get the modern look you are going for. Id start with the cabinets myself. That concrete sink just has to go. Im not sure what the last home owners were thinking with that one. It does not fit well with the current look of the bathroom nor would it fit the modern look you are looking for. Its a Leviathan of a sink that draws the eye away from everything else. The drawer fronts are already flat which is great for the modern look you are going for. I would opt to remove the shaker style cabinet doors though and replace them with flat front doors the same species of wood. Id also re-stain the cabinets to a darker color to give them a little more contrast in the room. If you plan to do it yourself opt for a nice General Finishes or Old Masters Gel stain that can go right over the existing finish. Last but not least for the cabinet door and drawer pulls. Change them out for something longer. 8 to 10 inch bar style pulls will go a long way to updating the look If you are really a stickler for detail and you want to really get into it. Get rid of the block glass around the shower and opt for a frame less plate glass instead. Maybe even add a knee wall where the block glass is between the shower and the toilet. Id also get rid of the mosaic tile on the floor of the shower. It just looks drab. Look for something with the same color variations as the wall tile, but with a little more pop to them. Last but not least for the shower. The shower trim kit to me completely go against the modern look you are going for. The trim can be changed out easily. Just opt for something of the same brand. If you go with a different brand then you will get into having to change the shower and diverter valves which means tearing out wall tile and plumbing. To much of a hassle. Stick with the same brand. Id get rid of that eclectic style ceiling light. For something with a more modern look. That square pot light over the toilet is really hurting the look of the bathroom. The vanity light over the sink is to eclectic and would need to go. The mirror is just to small and the frame around it does not suit the look you are going for. Also the wall mount faucet. Very traditional looking. Nothing wrong with the faucet being wall mounted I would just replace it with something more modern like a the Delta Trinsic wall mount faucet. Just my opinion on what should be done. I am not sure just how for into a remodel you were looking to get though

I'm currently watching Sanditon. We canceled our cable TV a while ago but I can watch it with Amazon Prime. I like it. It's not remotely authentic Jane Austen, but if you put that firmly out of your mind, it is an entertaining piece of historical fiction. Of course they have the hair all wrong. No young woman old enough to go on a visit away from her family would wear her hair down outside of her bedroom, a fault shared with the otherwise excellent new movie Little Women. The sexual themes hinted at no doubt occurred just as frequently in Jane Austen's era as in our own, but I doubt she ever discussed them, certainly not in her novels. Austen seemed pretty comfortable addressing seduction (Sense and Sensibility) as well as adultery and homosexuality (Mansfield Park), but there is a bit more than that being hinted at here. I'll leave it at that not to be coy but to avoid spoilers. Then there is the issue of race. The character of rich Miss Lambe from the West Indies is being used to explore race relations in a way Jane would never have faced so openly. I don't complain. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, and I have already stated that this is not really Jane Austen. I've seen the first two episodes. I'm interested in seeing where this goes. Has anyone else been watching? If so, what do you think?