Tuesday, June 9

Kitchen Cabinet Makeover: Lori Andrews.

Lori Andrews is a Calgary-based interior designer, and a favorite photographer of mine. Also known on Flicker as The 10 Cent Designer, Lori's beautiful, and often humorous, photography is admired by literally millions of flickerettes everywhere, including the infamous 'Stand on a Bench' Monday pool. Today, Lori is going to share her amazing kitchen cabinet makeover. Simply stunning!

Here a couple of "before" pics:

I like things done a certain way. When I bought my house it was completely trimmed in MDF (medium-density fiberboard) and even the kitchen cupboards were made of MDF. We liked the warmth but were continually frustrated by the poor finish that the previous owner had applied. My husband and I looked into purchasing all new custom cabinets but we had a very difficult time justifying it since the existing items were new and only had decorative flaws. We discussed painting them in a super glossy white and decided that would be our direction. someday...Well someday finally came!

I hired my favorite painter to paint out all of the wood trim in the house. That included the baseboards, the window casings, the base of the kitchen cabinets, some closets etc. It took him 4 coats and 8 full days to do this! Next, my husband and I researched what paint to use in order to get the super smooth, super hard , super glossy finish we wanted on the cabinet doors. After much debate we chose to go with a product that would do the job the best, and last the longest. Because I wanted an extremely durable surface that would not require repainting within the next decade, we chose a lacquer from Becker, who then matched the lacquer to our paint color for us - Benjamin Moore's, Oxford White. I looked at some water based products but they simply could not give the same quality of surface that we wanted.

The cabinets required a great deal of surface prep and my husband had to build special drying racks to stack them all (the cabinet fronts) out in our garage. He also had to rebuild several parts of the cabinetry that were not made of MDF. The microwave stand is one of the items he rebuilt. It is much smaller than the original, so we also had to buy a new microwave! He used a very powerful compression sprayer to apply the three coat paint system. We estimate it took nearly 40 hours to complete the cabinet fronts.


We loved our home before but now it is even better! My kitchen is easy to clean and my new white on white scheme just glows.

'Stand on a Bench' Monday in my home.


*Editor's note: Have you got a great makeover story? Send it my way!

14 comments:

nicolle said...

yay, so nice to see lori here. i love her home! it's so bright and cheery.

Lucila Zahran Turqueto said...

Uau! What a wonderful house. Congrats.

Teri said...

So stunning! Absolutely inspiring... but really, your dress is what's truly adorable! Cute picture, looks like you are taking a bow, and you should! Fabulous!

Lori Andrews said...

thanks for the blog posting sfgirlbybay!
and thanks for your nice comments girls :)

Unknown said...

Wow. Love it. Really brightens the place up. The colorful tiles are amazing. How did you do that?

kim. said...

I almost passed out when I saw Lori's newly painted kitchen pop up on Flickr. It looks incredible. I'm so glad you blogged about it.

Jessica Nichols said...

Breathtaking!

Keyse said...

I love that bench! its going on my wish list.

Heather De said...

Wow! So beautiful. Shouting out from up north in Edmonton. Can you share where that fabulous red door is from?

Lori Andrews said...

Kelly- we used a bunch of 9x18 tiles and had them cut into squares, then my husband came up with a random algorithm and we presnted the tiler with a map to work from. :)
thanks Kim and Jess,
Keyse- it's from Jonathan Adler, I totally adore it. mohair is very very durable.
Heather De- the door was a custom build in the house when we bought it. sorry!
thanks everyone!
thanks again Victoria. your so nice.

Laura. said...

WOW. i am impressed. who would trim out an entire house with mdf? it boggles my mind. but you have done amazing things with it! i really like all the natural light!

carrie @ bloomacious digs said...

I'm such a fan of The Ten Cent Designer - she's so talented at design and photography. Love her.

maja said...

an amazing transformation! what is the paint color for the walls? it looks like just the right neutral that i have been looking for.

The Queen Vee said...

Amazing, fabulous, WOW! I'm too am curious about the paint color on the walls, hope you'll share.