RSVPSTYLE

CATHY LEE STYLE

CATHY’S MARKETPLACE

Week 1 Winners - Saul Family of Ewa Beach

Although her Ewa Beach home is clean and organized, La Rena Saul sticks to safe colors and décor. Between busy careers and family time that revolved around son Koa’s football and basketball potlucks, fundraisers and campus activities, La Rena and husband Derrell had no time to get creative.

Until now.

La Rena, the first weekly winner of RSVPstyle and The Honolulu Advertiser’s $30,000 Style My Room contest, won a $299 RSVPstyle Deluxe Style Kit and a certificate for $1,000 worth of window treatments from American Carpet One.

La Rena screamed when she got the news. “Mahalo! My husband is really into the window treatments. But I’m more excited about the Style Kit,” she says. “I’m the type that every project I do, I’ll have a binder with indexes, but I have a hard time starting. So this is really up my alley—it’ll help me focus. This will be a jumping off point where I can get going. By this time next year, I know I'll have the confidence to walk into a store and not be overwhelmed!”

Now that Koa is in college, she and Derrell have more time. La Rena is vice president of marketing for Weil & Associates, a destination management company, and Derrell is a program manager for Lockheed Martin. The contest made her start wondering why their home looked pretty much the same as when they bought it new 15 years ago: basic furniture, few accents—and they’d grown accustomed to looking at the same white walls.

Now the Sauls are ready to focus their creative energy on transforming their home. They’re eager to learn what they like and want, what it’s possible to achieve, and how to achieve it.

“If she’s looking to spread her creative wings, we can work with her on window fashion—art, patterns or textures that will pull the room together,” says American Carpet One manager Aaron Okamoto. “Her windows can actually end up as the focal point of her living room!”

La Rena’s win makes her the first of seven weekly runner-up winners. At the end of the contest, 10 finalists will be selected, and of these, one winner will receive the $30,000 Grand Prize.

“I’m excited that we’re finally taking a step to get going with this whole personal project of improving our home—that’s the best part of it for me,” La Rena says. “I think there are more people out there like us. And my fingers are crossed that we’ll have a chance at the grand prize too!”

What about you? Have you submitted your entry? You could be one of our next six weekly runner-up winners—or have a chance to win the $30,000 Grand Prize!