Spatial Analysis

Imagine the beginnings: a twenty-five-by-sixty-foot rectangular box. A kitchen beckoned at one end, but that aside, their newly purchased Monohasset Mill apartment was a blank slate. “I like houses, or living areas, where each room feels like a distinctly different environment,” White explains. To that end, the couple nixed the open space idea and forged, with the aid of Providence-based carpenter David Santoro, a series of rooms and a second floor. New stairs lead to the library or, as White describes it, “the decompression zone” (right). Quirky sentries include a bear, Walter, and a dog from a stop-motion video White designed for the band State Radio. A salvaged window set at an angle—“…a diamond is almost always more engaging than a square,” says White—boosts visual interest.

I Pod

Kiley’s efficient office perches on the other side of the diamond window. But where to put White? In the end, the duo settled on a cleverly angled mini-building (left and above) set almost at the heart of the design. The jewel-box effect is heightened by a radiating patterned roof of amber Plexiglas. Seen from above, the tiny office appears to glow. “When I’m working at night, the light from my office casts an orangey pallor on the ceiling,” White says.

Kitchen Help

Coffee breaks for these artists entail a quick trip to the kitchen. Intense autumnal colored walls—September is a favorite month—define the setting and bring stature to laid-back Ikea cabinets (behind is their bedroom). The chunky island came by way of a relative. And those beguiling sheep? “All the ewes of my youth,” says White, who grew up on a small sheep farm.