No Awkward Slope or Slant Was Ignored in This London Attic Makeover

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For interior designers, finishing off a renovation can be bittersweet. Leanne Kilroy, founder of London-based firm Good Bones, had dedicated the past five years restoring her four-story Victorian townhouse back to its former glory. So when it came time to tackle the attic, she approached it as a last hurrah.

The top level consisted of her teen daughter Stella’s bedroom, a microscopic bathroom (just five square feet!), and a much-frequented guest room. While the spaces had been temporarily patched up with DIY fixes, by late 2025, it was now or never. “I really wanted to experiment up there, especially with the built-in features,” Kilroy explains. Ahead, discover where Kilroy chose to save and splurge, how her next-door neighbor helped her create the wallpaper of her dreams, and the ultimate transformation of this trio of rooms into a cohesive retreat.

Tap a Warm Neutral for “Warm Hug” Vibes

room with open shelving and wood desk — The desk area in Stella’s room after the transformation.

room with angled ceiling and brick wall — Stella’s room, before.

room with beige storage and jute rug — Stella’s room, after.

Stella was happy for her mom to take charge of her room; her only request was that it should feel like a warm hug. “I was like, ‘I can do that!’” says Kilroy, laughing. First up, she wrapped every surface in wide-set, V-groove paneling to soften the vast wall and ceiling that visually take up a lot of space. Kilroy wobbled on the color (Archive by Farrow & Ball), though—the first application came out darker and muddier than expected. “I thought I’d really messed up. But actually, once the whole space is enveloped, it brightens back up and feels really lovely,” she says. Even the picture ledges above the desk are drenched in the hue, and—fun fact—they’re not custom. Kilroy ingeniously asked the constructor to curve the edges of IKEA shelves and fill the gaps between the joins.

room with angled ceiling and skylights — Stella’s room, before.

room with angled ceiling and low bookshelf — Stella’s room, after.

Reach For Heirlooms

room with bed and wooden armoire — Stella’s room, after.

Although there’s a wall of built-in cupboards tucked beneath the sloped ceiling, Stella’s stand-alone wardrobe was still an important addition—it is quite literally part of her family’s history. Her dad bought the Scandinavian pine armoire from none other than Kilroy’s father’s antique furniture shop. “My husband and I were high school sweethearts, and then we broke up. At some point, my husband moved back to Boston in his twenties and this was his first adult furniture piece,” explains Kilroy. It has traveled with the couple ever since, even across the Atlantic. “It’s so terrifying to put it back together. We have to call my dad to guide us through the process,” says Kilroy. “It’s such a special piece, and it looks like it really belongs here.”

Create the Guest Room No One Wants to Leave

room with open shelving and brick wall — The guest room, before.

room with wood dresser and built-in desk nook — The guest room, after.

American family and friends are always angling for a stay at Kilroy’s home, so she wedged a tall custom cabinet into an awkward corner of the guest room for stashing suitcases and belongings away. Kilroy exercised artistic license in covering the door fronts in maple burl veneer. “I decided to lean into the fact that it’s a more private area of the house, and I can do things I haven’t done before to see if I would recommend them to clients,” she notes. (The answer, in this case? Yes!)

The built-in desk doubles as a dressing table, its back wall clad in cork for pinning inspiration and mementos. The designer used a roll of the stuff, but next time she’d opt for stick-on cork tiles instead. (Not only was the former difficult to install, but she had way too much leftover.)

room with desk nook and white bed — The guest room, before.

room with wallpapered ceiling and wall and built in desk nook — The guest room, after.

Craft a Wallpaper That Tells Your Story

wallpapered room with wood dresser, mirror, and wood chair — Two Domino sconces, named after another of Kilroy’s daughters, in the guest room.

empty white room with open door — The guest room, before.

guest room with wallpapered ceiling and walls — The guest room, after.

Kilroy has never used wallpaper in her home, but she was struck with a very specific vision: a neutral pattern with no obvious repeat and a smaller scale to work with the room’s wonky architecture. Her searches revealed nothing. Cue Kilroy’s neighbor—a graphic designer she was consulting for—who said she could sketch out a motif for her. The result: a painterly floral that subtly incorporates Kilroy’s daughters’ love of ballet and butterflies, their initials, and the family’s cat. Kilroy simply plugged the design into a print-your-own-wallpaper service; the end result cost less than a roll of designer wallpaper.

Get the Lighting Right

wallpapered guest room with bed and headboard — The Stella light fixtures bookend the headboard in the guest room. Photography by Charlotte Bland for Plank Hardware

wallpapered room with bedside lamp and view out the window — Another view of the Stella light fixture. Photography by Charlotte Bland for Plank Hardware

The attic’s pitched ceilings meant pendants were a no-no. Luckily, Kilroy’s collaboration with Plank Hardware was being finalized, at the same time as the renovation. In both Stella’s room and the guest space, Stella swing-arm sconces hang next to the beds. “I love how they work in what are very different-looking spaces,” says Kilroy. The Aster, a star-shaped flush mount you would typically install on the ceiling, serves as an unexpected jewel above the guest room doorway.

Think Through Every Potential Issue

bathroom with green marble vanity — Another Stella light fixture hangs above the vanity in the renovated bathroom.

bathroom with white toilet — The bathroom, before.

pink and green marble floor in bathroom — The bathroom, after.

In the spirit of getting out of her comfort zone, Kilroy braved a slab of pink and green Alba Chiara marble for the floor, shower tray, and skirting of the tiny shared bathroom. The vanity top, however, is a dark green granite off-cut boasting a sink cleverly oriented so that no one will accidentally bump their head on the ceiling. The two-tone taps and towel warmer are another custom creation. “I decided to do mixed metal, because why not?” she says. Just the right frame of mind for a last hurrah.