Photography by Anne Matheis
There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste, when I see people throwing away things we could use.”
—Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa, meet Hector Caiazza. He keeps things no one would use and hardly anyone would want. In his hands, a broken refrigerator turns into a jukebox, a discarded tire becomes a sink, an abandoned gas tank is retrofitted into a soft drink dispenser. And the old electroshock therapy machine set in the living room? A guaranteed conversation starter.
The home he shares with his wife Lynn is contemporary but warm, retro but not kitsch—a completely original design that’s made all the more surprising by its location along the curvy, wooded streets of a sleepy Sunset Hills subdivision.
“Everyone always tells us that we seem like such city people,” says Lynn. “But we both grew up in the suburbs. When we moved from our house in South City, we wanted a pretty, friendly neighborhood that reminded us of where we grew up.”
The house number at the end of the driveway consists of a stylized graphic design set in a silver-framed box illuminated from within. It’s the only hint of what’s behind the otherwise typical exterior of their unassuming 1950s ranch—until you reach the entrance, where the glass front door features the word “Firehouse” set off in a clear circle amid a frosted panel.
The door opens to reveal a flowing living space warmed by a contemporary chartreuse-and-orange color palette and honey-toned hardwood floors. An eclectic mix of furniture creates a scene of funky sophistication; the clean, urban lines of an Ikea leather couch blends with the retro chic of Lynn’s grandmother’s cabinet-style television, refitted to house today’s technology. The adjoining kitchen’s
maple cabinets, stainless steel fittings and crisp, cool blue color scheme offer a striking contrast, yet its contemporary design maintains a harmonious blend of the two spaces.
The surprise quotient is kept high with touches of pure fun throughout the home. Dr. Seuss characters grace the walls of daughter Dante’s room, its ceiling covered in blue fur à la Cookie Monster. A jukebox sits in the eating area at one end of the kitchen, waiting to play the next selection.
Downstairs is a finished basement that’s a child’s vision of what an adult house might someday be. It’s designed simply for fun, with old lockers from the Missouri Athletic Club, Hector’s grandfather’s barber chair, a pinball machine and an old refrigerator Hector transformed into a working jukebox. The crowning glory, though, is the “hot-rod” bathroom, complete with metal wainscoting, a gearshift faucet and a sink made of real tires.
“We always said that someday we’d have a fun room,” Lynn says. “Anything goes in this space. It’s also a good place to put things we’re not ready to get rid of—maybe I don’t want that Elvis poster in the living room anymore, but it’d be great in a fun room. Our friends tell us that this is where all the neighborhood kids will want to hang out. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing.”
The surprises keep coming: The Caiazzas did the work themselves, and on a budget. Lynn, a resource manager at Zipatoni, lent her remarkable bargain-hunting skills to the project; Hector, an industrial designer who has helped plan theme parks, added his technical know-how. Both drew on their considerable creativity, and, over the course of just a few years, they transformed the house from a dull suburban box with dingy white walls to a stylish but approachable home expressive of the young family inhabiting it.
They started small, replacing the shiny brass fixtures, doorknobs and switch plates with muted silver versions more representative of their taste. They experimented with color next, aiming for a brighter, bolder palette, a departure from what Lynn calls the “more traditional, Pottery Barn colors” of their first house.
As Hector designed their dream kitchen, Lynn compiled a budget-friendly mix of new and found objects to round out the décor. The front door, salvaged from an old building downtown, came from one of Lynn’s co-workers. A circa 1969 map of Sunset Hills, found in a drawer, was framed and hung in the foyer, above a printer’s cabinet left over from Lynn’s father’s long career in a print shop. The Caiazzas played up the original pink tile in the hall bath with a ’50s-style minty green toilet, sink and counter found at Re-Store, which Lynn describes as “a sort of thrift store for house stuff.” She also found a Heywood-Wakefield dining room set on eBay.
And when it came time to tackle the kitchen, the couple kept costs down by acting as their own general contractor, scouring home improvement stores for materials and hiring the necessary professionals to install them.
“It was a lot of stress—phone calls all day at work and a lot of shopping around to compare prices—but we probably saved $10,000,” Lynn says—a good chunk of it on the hardware. They bought all the pulls at IKEA for $60; they found them originally at Home Depot Expo—for around $700.
The DIY kitchen floor was also a cost-saving measure. Designed by Hector, it’s a retro design updated by a modern color palette of grays and blues punctuated by periodic pops of orange. The result is easily the most visually arresting element of the new kitchen. “It’s the same flooring you’d see at Target or in a school, though you usually see it in grey or white,” Lynn says. “But it comes in beautiful colors and is ridiculously cheap.” The vinyl squares by Armstrong were easy to cut, though difficult to keep square. “Hector had to hand-sand each piece to fit correctly,” Lynn says. “It was excruciating but worth it.”
