Long before she envisioned launching her own product lines, Kilroy found herself captivated by those specific light fixtures. The way the light would play through the delicate perforations and bounce off the surrounding walls created what she described as pure magic. For years and years, she attempted to track down the exact vintage shades for her own projects, scouring antique markets and specialty shops. Eventually, she gave up on finding the originals and decided to solve the problem by designing and making them herself.
That personal quest transformed into a partnership with UK-based lighting and hardware brand Plank. Her inaugural collaboration with the company, heavily inspired by those original vintage perforated lights, debuted earlier this year and promptly sold out. Now, following that domestic success in the United Kingdom, Kilroy and Plank are bringing the entire lighting line stateside, accompanied by an extensive new collection of complementary cabinet hardware designs.
The expansion introduces American homeowners and interior designers to a range of pieces defined by careful proportions and thoughtful engineering. According to the designer, practical scale and design elements, mixed with beautiful shapes and entirely free of visible screws, are the core components required to create products that will stand the test of time. In a marketplace saturated with countless lighting fixtures and cabinet pulls, the collaboration sets itself apart through a deliberate balance of whimsy, classic motifs, and high-end craftsmanship.
Whimsical and Functional Lighting
The core of the lighting collection lies in its unique interaction with illumination. When light slips through a tiny perforation, it creates a distinct pinpoint on the opposite surface; multiply that effect across a pattern, and the result is an ephemeral sparkle that dances across any nearby wall or ceiling. Combined with broader open sections in the fixtures, Kilroy’s designs cast captivating, complex shapes across a room.
These fixtures are built to serve practical purposes rather than functioning merely as decorative accents. Pieces like the Aster can be utilized effectively as a spotlight or a flush mount, while the Stella model is engineered to swing smoothly on a hinge to provide customizable task lighting where it is needed most. Throughout the daylight hours, the fixtures infuse a room with distinct personality through their sculptural silhouettes, shifting to visual intrigue once illuminated at night.
Achieving the exact aesthetic and physical performance required extensive prototyping. The designer notes that the team tried many iterations to get the perforations to be just the right size and placement, ultimately landing on a configuration that maximizes light dispersion. Even the Aster model, which does not feature a traditional shade, plays dynamically with the way light hits its multi-faceted metal base and bounces outward. To achieve the intended visual effect within the fixtures, golf ball-sized globe bulbs are recommended, though users can also experiment with capped bulbs to alter the projected shape of the light.
Classic and Playful Motifs
A recurring visual element uniting both the lighting and hardware lines is a raised, eight-point star motif. This shape appears prominently on both the Aster light and the Cecilia backplate, drawing from traditional metalwork traditions. Kilroy gravitated toward this specific geometric form primarily for the way it scatters and bounces light in an arresting manner when the fixtures are powered on.
Beyond the eight-point star, the collections draw heavily on classic vintage designs, incorporating shapes such as jewels, shields, teardrops, and various undulating lines. Each of these motifs deliberately combines crisp, clean edges with rounded silhouettes and unexpected points. This careful equilibrium is what prevents the pieces from feeling strictly historical, ensuring they feel timeless and, particularly in the case of the hardware, invitingly tactile.
Working with polished metal can often yield results that look sharp and overly striking. To counteract this, Kilroy focuses on injecting an element of softness into the profiles, ensuring that the finished objects feel approachable and comfortable to interact with on a daily basis.
Delicate and Durable Craftsmanship
Every hardware piece in the collection has been designed to feel soft in the hand, deliberately avoiding harsh edges to maximize both aesthetic appeal and physical comfort. This design choice ensures that the pulls and knobs will not cause discomfort if someone accidentally bumps into them in the bustle of a busy household.
The pieces are designed to fit into the normal chaotic routines of a busy home, adding beauty and functionality without getting in the way. In keeping with this philosophy, Kilroy deliberately scaled the hardware smaller than most comparable knobs and pulls currently on the market. While prevailing interior trends often lean toward an ethos that bigger is better, the designer believes that more subtle pieces allow for greater individual personality and far more flexibility in how they can be deployed throughout a space.
This scalability means a homeowner might choose to replace a single long, dominant drawer handle with two smaller handles, two swing pulls, or two traditional knobs. Because of their diminutive size, they never visually overpower a room, allowing them to look equally at home on traditional Shaker-style cabinetry or more contemporary, flat-front millwork.
This delicate physical presentation is matched by sophisticated underlying engineering. Certain pieces, such as the Drop Pull and the Swing Pull, are equipped with an invisible stop mechanism. This internal engineering prevents the metal hardware from swinging back forcefully against, and potentially damaging, the cabinet door or drawer front where they are mounted. The pieces swing freely and then stop short of the furniture behind them, a functional detail that underscores the thoughtful approach behind the collaboration.
The full collection spans both cabinetry hardware and lighting fixtures, featuring items such as the James Pull in polished nickel, the Ruthie Drop Pull in unlacquered brass priced at $30, the Adelia Knob with a backplate at $41, and the James Pull with backplates at $76. The lighting lineup includes the Domino Flush Wall Sconce at $179, the Stella Swivel Wall Light at $249, the Aster Flush Mount at $229, and the Vesper Conical Pendant Light, bringing the comprehensive Good Bones aesthetic directly to the U.S. market.
