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Photo by Carmen Troesser
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Photo by Carmen Troesser
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Photo by Carmen Troesser
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Photo by Carmen Troesser
The St. Charles home of Zach and Brie Smithey showcases the couple’s creativity and demonstrates how they live their values.
“We recycle and repurpose so much in our lives,” says Zach. “A container house just works.”
Zach—an artist, designer and builder—and his wife, Brie, co-own Miss Aimee B’s Tea Room & Gallery in St. Charles. In addition to running the popular restaurant, Brie oversees Brie’s Protein Bars, a business she founded in 2005.
Together the 30-somethings have also built or rehabbed four houses. But the strain of construction, design choices, and multiple moves doesn’t appear to sit heavily on the energetic pair.
“Early on we had ideas about building an earth house or a geodesic house. We thought about shipping containers—I even drew up plans—but a vacation in St. Maarten solidified our decision,” says Zach. Brie’s design ideas tend to mirror her love of the ocean: the floors and the stairs, which are covered in a white epoxy paint that’s been rolled on and then scraped off, result in the look of weathered wood scavenged from the beach.
“I’m an island girl wannabe,” Brie says.
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Photo by Carmen Troesser
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Photo by Carmen Troesser
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Photo by Carmen Troesser
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Photo by Carmen Troesser
Zach’s eclectic aesthetic defies categorization. He says objects he salvages, such as the huge arched windows that dominate the façade of the house, often spark his creativity. Then, there are the many custom touches throughout the interior, such as the two stairways: one from the basement to the first floor and another one that extends to the upper level. Zach used wire spool tops cut in half to make the curved treads, and no two balusters on the stairways are alike. Although many of the materials in the Elm Street home come from Zach’s foraging trips and a stockpile at his studio, the two make most design decisions together.
They agreed, for example, to make sink bowls in all four bathrooms from salvaged ceramic and concrete birdbaths and to incorporate live-edge pieces of lumber coated with bar epoxy in two bathrooms.
Other times, the couple—beachcomber and artist—meet in the middle.
“To please Brie,” says Zach, “I painted our dining room table with an abstract ocean scene in my painting style,” he says.
“My favorite thing is having enough wall space to showcase Zach’s artwork,” says Brie. “We never had enough space in our other houses. Now we do.”
See also: Local Artists Transform Shipping Containers into Houses
