Food52 - February 20, 2026
A (self-taught!) American designer on overhauling her London home
The classic Victorian with “great bones in shabby clothes.
A (self-taught!) American designer on overhauling her London homeThe classic Victorian with “great bones in shabby clothes.”
I’ve written about slowly renovating and re-renovating our Brooklyn apartment over the course of 20 years. During this journey, I really wish I’d known Leanne Kilroy, who writes The Good Bones Life. We could have commiserated about the setbacks and frustrations, but also about the satisfactions of working on a home, corner by corner, room by room.
My efforts were like doodling compared to Leanne’s fine art. A few years ago, she and her husband bought a down-at-the-heels Victorian home in London—and, while raising her first daughter and having two more children, they crammed into an upper floor of the home while tackling the rest of the house with the blend of ingenuity, grit, and insanity that all DIY renovators possess.
Leanne is so great at it that she now runs her own design firm, and has just released her first lighting line, a sweet and handy collection of sconces and pendants designed in collaboration with Plank Hardware. (The line is not yet available in North America but if you’re interested, send her a note—this will help make it happen!) Scroll to the last photo to see some of the lighting in her home, but don’t miss her list of wise and practical tips along the way! Yours in house snooping, Amanda ... Subscribe to Homeward to unlock the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Homeward to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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