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CATHY LEE STYLE

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Week 4 Winner - Richard “Keke” Papa Jr. of Kaneohe

As a single dad who works at two general contracting firms, Richard “Keke” Papa Jr. was always too busy to update his own outdated Ahuimanu home. But Richard is also an ordained minister and native Hawaiian kahu. When he saw the ad for the $30,000 Style My Room contest, he says, “I entered on a whim and a prayer.”

Somebody was listening: Richard is the fourth weekly runner-up winner of the ongoing contest, and will receive $1,000 in lighting from Honolulu Lights as well as a $299 RSVPstyle Deluxe Style Kit.

“I didn’t want to brag to anybody, because I couldn’t believe I won!” Richard says. “This home was built back in the mid-70s and it was functional. But the track lighting looks like stage lighting—you can use it outside on the patio! I’ve seen the new track lighting and it’s narrow, smaller, brighter.”

Adir Gadiel of Honolulu Lights knows just the solution. “Introducing a rail lighting system is one of the best ways to update your home,” he says. “It’s simple and flexible, and there are a variety of fixtures that can attach to them. The homeowner has the freedom to adjust the lights to glow exactly where they want.”

Richard hopes the Style Kit’s Learn to Decorate with Style DVD and workbook will help him go a step further. He wants to maximize the potential of the tropical, custom-built pole house he shares with son James, a sixth-grader at Island School, and his older son Gabriel, a sophomore at Whittier College in California who comes home during school vacations.

“I’ve seen Cathy on the KITV morning news and I’ve seen her work,” says Richard, whose sister still can’t believe her manly-man brother entered a makeover contest. “I’m a building contractor, but you know how contractors have no time to do their own home? I try to keep it as clean and neat as possible, but I don’t have time.”

Even though he’s retired from a 30-year career with the Federal Fire Department, Richard serves as president of The Waikolu Group and founder of Papa and Sons Builders, both general construction firms. As a kahu, he frequently blesses construction sites and advises the U.S. military and its contractors on Hawaiian culture, traditions and protocol.

“For me, less is more. I have a lot of Hawaiiana items and I don’t want them to be cluttering my house,” Richard says. “I’d like to learn color coordination. I want to see what colors Cathy proposes, and figure out my furniture scheme, maybe move things around to maximize the space.”

What about you? Have you entered? There are still three more runner-up prizes to give away—and the $30,000 Grand Prize makeover!