Rental Revamp: With the Owner’s OK, They Put $1,200 Worth of Plywood Into Their Topanga Kitchen

When architect Mason St. Peter and his wife, designer Isabelle Elsliger-Garant, moved into a former hunting cabin in Topanga Canyon half a mile down a dirt road, they weren’t afraid to make the rental their own. The couple got right to work on things a tenant can change without giving a landlord a panic attack: they brought in some midcentury pieces scored from friends working at vintage shops, switched in their favorite lamps, and added fresh coats of paint where they could.

"Everything was very nice," Mason says of the 1928 home, "but the kitchen..." The oak cabinets were Shaker-style, off-the-shelf units, installed sometime in the 1980s. The cramped, disjointed layout wasn’t one Mason would’ve necessarily designed for one of his own projects. In general, he’s a man with firm opinions about kitchens, drawn to light, open spaces, plywood or vertical-grain fir cabinetry, and high-function plans. This little remote cabin had none of that. "It’s a rental, so I thought we couldn’t do anything with it," he says. "I just had to turn my back on it." So he did, somewhat literally: every time he photographed the house or shared a snapshot of a cozy moment at home, the kitchen stayed out of frame.

Eventually, a friend in Australia noticed and teased, "Who needs a kitchen, right?" He was just joking around, but the comment nudged Mason to reconsider punching up a space he thought he couldn’t touch. After all, by this point, he and Isabelle had been there for five years. Was this truly a temporary space? Could they really keep pretending the kitchen didn’t exist forever?

The answer, they decided, was no.

Luckily, over the course of five years, Mason and Isabelle had done enough successful mini updates to the property to build a foundation of trust with their landlady—refacing the kitchen was a big ask, but they'd proven to her they had the taste and skills to do the job right. Isabelle tipped the first design domino by repainting the kitchen floor. "It just changed everything," says Mason. The paint job helped him see the room with new eyes, and finally the inspiration started flowing. He loaded his kids into his van and drove to Anderson Plywood Sales in Culver City, which stocks clean-faced plywood, and came home with 12 sheets to turn into new cabinet facing.

"I’m one of those people that’s like, measure twice, cut once. But it’s actually like measure six times and it’s still not right," laughs Mason. Nevertheless, the install only took a couple of days. They kept the existing boxes, removed the door and drawer faces, replaced them with plywood, and clad the sides. Then it was a new faucet, and a crisp coat of Benjamin Moore paint for the walls, both for a little over $100.

Plywood accounted for $1,200 of the roughly $1,500 total, not counting the value of the couple’s labor. "If we were to pay someone else to do it, it would be quite a bit more," says Mason. The counters are still on the to-do list—but for now, existing butcher block runs along one side, blue tile on the other.

A broken, pill-shaped marble piece that Mason found and repaired became a coffee counter, topped with an espresso machine gifted by Anza. A George Nelson bubble lamp from the shop Modern for All sits beside it, and a Paul McCobb table—a recent find from a San Francisco midcentury dealer— tucks underneath.