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"  Christine Pittel: Those ceiling lights in the living room may be the biggest I&amp;#039;ve ever seen.  Kim Dempster: Aren&amp;#039;t they great? They&amp;#039;re made from old buoys, cut in half. My husband and I were walking down the street in St. Helena, and we saw one in the window of Erin Martin&amp;#039;s showroom. That&amp;#039;s how we found her and asked her to help with this house. It all started with those lights. So you like big scale in a small space. Erin Martin: Always. And big furniture. I might put as much stuff as I can into a small room, and in a bigger space, I&amp;#039;ll do less stuff. There are no rules. Somewhere along the line we got stuck in a box. Let&amp;#039;s get out of it and have some fun. Try something new. Like a coffee table that looks as if it was made from an old anchor chain. KD: I found that in Erin&amp;#039;s warehouse.  EM: And then I remembered I had an old round piece of marble somewhere. It literally fit in the table like a glove. I thought, &amp;#039;Yes! You two were supposed to meet long ago.&amp;#039;  KD: I like that it&amp;#039;s not too pretty. We&amp;#039;re in coastal Marin, with a view of the ocean, and I&amp;#039;ve definitely got a nautical theme going. But we didn&amp;#039;t want kitschy nautical. It&amp;#039;s more marine industrial. When we first saw this place in 1997, it was paneled in the original redwood. It felt more like a mountain cabin than a beach house. We painted the interior white to make it light and airy. Flash forward to 2010, when I finally got around to the landscaping. There was a drainage problem in the front yard, and when the contractor came out, he discovered that our whole foundation was crumbling. We had to shore up the house, so I thought, &amp;#039;Might as well do some remodeling at the same time.&amp;#039; That&amp;#039;s when Erin came in. Those were the most expensive hollyhocks known to mankind.  Charm is elusive, and it would have been easy to lose it. KD: We tried to be careful. It would have been far easier to tear down the house, but we wanted to preserve the unique living room. Not much was changed, although we had to tear out the original brick fireplace because the footing was cracked and failing. You did a brilliant job on the new one.  EM: It&amp;#039;s my ode to Louise Nevelson. Our architect used to be a woodworker, and we got her to make it for us. When she said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;m nervous,&amp;#039; I said, &amp;#039;Just don&amp;#039;t think. Let it put itself together.&amp;#039; KD: It&amp;#039;s not a traditional art piece, but we think of it as art. EM: The fireplace is the heart of the home. If one more person puts a TV above the fireplace, I&amp;#039;m going to commit seppuku. This is where you sit around and tell stories. You can have the most intimate conversations in a small space. And the best sleep in a cozy little bedroom. The two upstairs are just about big enough for a bed. But what&amp;#039;s that sink doing in the corner? KD: That&amp;#039;s so you don&amp;#039;t have to wait for someone to come out of the bathroom to wash your face or brush your teeth. There used to be a closet in the corner, but we took that out and replaced it with two closets framing the bed. EM: With these little niches for your coffee and your books and an outlet for your iPhone. I can&amp;#039;t decide if I want to sleep there or downstairs in the bunk room.  KD: It&amp;#039;s so tempting. Once in a while, Mark and I will sleep there along with the kids. If we have another family visiting, either all the kids go down and the parents go up, or the whole family sleeps in the bunk room. Kids just love that room, and they&amp;#039;ll hang out down there even when it&amp;#039;s not bedtime. You have your own little compartment, and you can get in and close the curtains.  EM: And peek back and forth, or close it all up and leave your light on all night and read. It&amp;#039;s the kind of thing we did when we were children. They don&amp;#039;t need to be watching TV or playing Xbox all day.  And you write on the walls, which feels a bit subversive...and kind of liberating. KD: That&amp;#039;s Erin&amp;#039;s idea, and I love it. It&amp;#039;s like a different form of art in a way.  EM: I&amp;#039;ll write anywhere. When you read something on a wall, it resonates. What&amp;#039;s that quote by the dining table? EM: &amp;#039;The pieces of a ship taken by themselves will sink. But when combined together, will take you anywhere you want to go.&amp;#039; For me, it&amp;#039;s about family and loving one another, no matter what life brings you. It&amp;#039;s something we know in our heart and our soul, but we need to be reminded occasionally.  A house like this feels as if it could hold a family together. How does it do that? EM: Well, it&amp;#039;s the right size for a family. People who have these huge houses never see one another. And when they do get together, they usually avoid the great room and sit in the breakfast nook. There&amp;#039;s something magical about being in a small space. You don&amp;#039;t feel lonely. Energy can only go so far, and when you walk into this house, you feel it. There&amp;#039;s a sense of soul and spirit and nostalgia. There will be conversations around that fireplace for many years. It will evoke memories and create a history for this family, over time. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/home-makeovers/tips/a858/erin-martin-design-kim-dempster-0712/>