Products & Services

Rob's Custom Cabinets concentrates on custom kitchens, many types of built-ins, residential remodeling, and custom cabinetry in and around southern California. Kitchens and built-ins can be painted or finished like furniture

Rob's Custom Cabinets has many satisfied customers that are very proud of their kitchens and built-ins. Cabinets by Rob's Custom Cabinets typically become the focal point of a room. Cabinets are designed by you (with our input if you need or want it) and physics and nature will be the only design constraints placed on your idea! In other words, if you can dream it up and it doesn't defy the aforementioned laws of nature and physics, Rob's Custom Cabinets can most likely make it.

If you are considering a built-in, please click the following link and spend some time reading about Built-In Design.

The majority of woodworking items we produce are made to order. Please take a few minutes and go through the gallery to examine some of the projects we've created in the past. As you surf the gallery, keep in mind we are by no means limited by what you see there. There are many items we never had the chance to photograph before delivering them into the hands of satisfied customers.

If you are interested in having something constructed, please do not hesitate to contact us. We can put you in touch with references and show you photos and descriptions of items not listed on our site!

SERVICES OFFERED:

Kitchen, Bath, Media/Entertainment Centers, Home Libraries, Home Theater Cabinetry, Mantels, Home Office, Garage Cabinets, Custom Closets, Cabinet Refacing, Cabinet Refinishing, Interior and Exterior Doors, Custom Cabinet Doors, House Crown and Base and Casing, Boxed Beam Ceilings, Specialty Glazed Finishes , Crackle and Distressed or Standard Stains. We have a showroom, and we finish our own cabinets. We make our own moldings.

COST:

Costs can only be determined after a discussion detailing your project requirements. The types of fees to be expected are design, materials, overhead and labor, construction, finishing, delivery, and installation.

DESIGN:

Design consists of determining dimensions of the piece, which requires a site visit. Once the dimension are picked, styles and adornments are chosen along with functional requirements and a finish schedule. Finally, plans are drawn and material specifications and availability determined. If you have a design, a full set of plans and drawings and materials schedule, design fees may be lowered, minimal, or even waived.

MATERIALS AND LABOR:

Materials are hand-picked. For wood, grain patterns, colors and figures are inspected for appropriateness for the piece at hand. Overhead, labor, and profit are obviously needed to keep the business running. There are a few situations in which I will allow clients to supply materials. I will only do this after a personal inspection of the materials.

CONSTRUCTION:

This is the process that takes raw materials and transforms them from an idea into a reality. Time-proven construction methods are used. Wood is a wonderful medium to work with, but some of its characteristics are not forgiving. Wood and wood products move with changes in temperature and humidity; therefore, certain techniques have to be used to ensure that assemblies won't crack or split during use while other assemblies have to remain flat, and yet others don't bend or sag in use.

FINISHING:

All prior steps lead to finishing. This is probably the most important step; it's what people see and feel when they look at a piece. Finishing is a combination of art and science, representing a significant portion of work and requiring tremendous attention to detail.

DELIVERY AND INSTALLATION:

A site visit prior to design is required for larger items that will be delivered. Doorways, hallways, stairwells, ceilings, and other access considerations are inspected to determine whether an item may have to be designed to accommodate any of these restrictions. Installation may require modifications to openings, trim, floor, etc. and may also include scribing, leveling, reassembly, adjustments, and final trim work.

A COST COMPARISON:

So, with all that, how much does custom cabinetry really cost? Well, that depends. If you take a few minutes to read this Comparison on the Different Types of Cabinetry , perhaps you will have a better feel for what to expect and, possibly, where to look. You might also be better able to define your requirements prior to calling Rob's Custom Cabinets.

HARDWARE:

Attempting to save a few bucks by not budgeting for quality hardware is highly discouraged. Every time you pull out a drawer or open or shut a cabinet door, cheap hardware will forever call your name.

Built-In Design, Construction, Finishing, and Installation:

Much more than a stand-alone piece of furniture, a furniture quality built-in (entertainment center, media center, etc.) will add a whole new dimension to a room. And when a built-in is designed for your lifestyle, less stand-alone furniture is needed.

A lot of families are now creating home theater systems using DVD players and surround sound systems with 3, 4, or even 5 channels for sound. Base modules ,those large, suitcase-looking boxes that come with home theater systems, may or may not look good sitting out. Why not hide it in a built-in cabinet?

General Woodworking:

Rob's Custom Cabinets can cut, rip, route, drill, bore, round, chamfer, edge, profile, slot, mortise, curve, straighten, joint, thickness, shape, split, carve, turn, repair, glue, finish, strip, sand, buff, polish, lacquer, shellac, oil, polyurethane, crackle, varnish, wax, resaw, bend, dress, dovetail, lap, nail, screw, countersink, inlay, color, spline, tenon, rabbet, dado, groove, distress, burn, burnish, scroll, assemble, disassemble, fit, shorten, lengthen, widen, and design just about anything else to wood. Needless to say, our skills are diversified. Don't hesitate to call or e-mail.

Mill Work:

Custom doors, window frames, door casings, and baseboards add character and interest in your home or office. Couple with a crown molding, chair rail, panel molding and/or wainscoting, you can transform a dull, uninteresting room into a room that begs your presence. Rob's Custom Cabinets can take your rooms to the next level with custom mill work. Custom furniture moldings can also be produced in any wood and in any size and shape. Your imagination is the only limit.

Custom Cabinetry:

If you need something out of the ordinary, or you want quality that is not available with production cabinets, consider commissioning a custom cabinet from Rob's Custom Cabinets. Like furniture, the sky is the limit on design and features for custom cabinetry.

Cabinet Repairs:

Broken doors, drawer slides gone bad, worn-out fittings, mis-adjusted hardware, etc. are all common problems with cabinets. When what seems to be an easy fix becomes difficult, call Rob's Custom Cabinets for professional and courteous service.

Furniture Making:

Most people will never commission a piece of custom furniture. People find it all too convenient to walk into a store, point, pay, and pack it home. It's easy. It's convenient. It's fast. It's usually relatively inexpensive. And with that, you will always get what you pay for. Handmade furniture is a different product. It is made for you, to your specifications, for your intended spot, in your choice of materials and finishes, not someone else's choice.

Custom-Made Furniture:

When you order a piece of custom furniture, you have to wait for it to be built. Plans have to be drawn out. Wood has to be selected and dressed. Parts must be shaped. Joinery must be cut and fit. Glue has to dry. Finishes have to cure and so on. It's a detailed process that gives satisfaction to the maker and to the customer.

If you are considering a built-in and you are not already working with a designer or architect, I would suggest you do some homework and go through magazines that suit your taste and cut out pictures of other built-ins and architectural features that you like. This is usually enough to get started with from a design standpoint. Built-ins can be finished to your specifications to match your existing furniture, or you may commission them unfinished. Before work ever starts on a built-in, I prepare a scale drawing for your approval. Adjustments are cheap at this stage of the process! In a word, built-ins designed and made by Rob's Custom Cabinets are elegant.

Cabinetry Cost Comparisons:

With respect of your time, Rob's Custom Cabinets wants you to know the following: If you are shopping for custom woodworking, cabinetry, or built-in based on price alone, you might be persuaded to choose a company other than Rob's Custom Cabinets.

However, if you are looking for a company that produces top-quality products and gets it right the first time, and you place a higher value on this, then Rob's Custom Cabinets is indeed the company you have been looking for. Cabinet pricing is not rocket science, but it is an expense category most people have not dealt with. When you buy a production or used home, cabinets are typically not a separate line item.

Cabinet pricing can be estimated by linear foot pricing. Below, you will learn about three types of cabinetry: site-built, production, and custom. Each section contains general comments about the type of product and then provides rough estimates for linear foot pricing. (Note the emphasis here is on kitchen cabinets.)

Site-Built Cabinetry: Site-built cabinets are those where a carpenter will set up shop in your garage, house, or front yard with his portable workshop and tools. He or she will arrive with sheets of the cheapest plywood available and stock moldings and start making cabinets. After the cabinets are made, they will be painted or stained in place. The name of the game here is to get in and get out. Don't expect high quality cabinets, full-length drawer boxes and quality hardware, or good use of space. Finishing will most likely be mediocre to okay and better if you hire a different person to finish them. (Again, this is typical.) Don't expect long design sessions with these people. If they have a glue bottle and sandpaper with them, consider yourself fortunate. Expect to see butt joints and mill marks in the finished product and exposed plywood edges in door and drawer openings. The woods of choice are birch plywood with pine moldings. For an upgraded look, they might use ash or oak plywood or ash molding instead of pine. Hardware will typically be surface-mounted offset hinges that match the lipped doors and plastic roller three-quarter extension slides. This type of cabinetry, for just about any sized job, can be made in just a few days and the craftsmanship usually shows it.

The linear foot cost for this type of cabinetry is around $100 to $200. Production/tract homebuilders might even pay less. For a small kitchen with 10 linear feet cabinets and 10 linear feet of upper cabinets, the cost would be around $2,000 to $4,000 unfinished. Rob's Custom Cabinets does not compete with, nor does it produce, this type of cabinetry.

Production Cabinetry: When it comes down to it, in the final analysis, the production cabinets made today are not bad. Options and accessories are good. Finishes are getting better and better and it is amazing how nice non-wood products can be made to look with modern technology. There are, however, aspects of these cabinets some educated buyers might find limiting. First, there is an abundant use of plastic veneer over particle board. Shelves are so thin that even narrow ones sag under the weight of glasses or dishes. The materials which make up the guts of the cabinet boxes are kept to an absolute minimum and they are made as quickly as is machine (not humanly) possible. They are mass- produced. They should be cookie-cutter perfect. When you order these cabinets, you might be limited to the manufacturer's catalog for sizes, shapes, configurations, and finishes. With higher-end manufacturers, there are a lot of option to choose from in regards to non-standard dimension, but those are upgrades and will cost you more. These almost never include counter tops, and installation is an additional fee. Per linear foot, you can pay anywhere from $225 to $400. The price does include finishing, as they are usually pre-finished at the factory. Our same kitchen 10' fun of upper and lower cabinets about would then cost anywhere from $4,500 to $8,000.

One thing to note here in this category is about cabinet accessories. Many of these accessories are good ideas, but when ordering from a production manufacturer, the execution of the accessory is most likely not as good as the concept. Take, for example, trash pull-outs. There are a lot of wire basket-type trash pull-outs. Most don't slide well at all, are easily bent, and the basket, if included, is small and may not fit the standard kitchen-sized trash bags you are used to. See and operate these accessories before you upgrade to them.

Custom Cabinetry: Custom is such an over-used term when it comes to cabinetry. Custom could mean they were built on-site to fit you kitchen space. Custom could mean the cabinets were ordered from a catalog to fit your space in the configuration you chose, with your finish option from the 5 available. Here, they are really merely customized from standard options.

However, in this section and on the Rob's Custom Cabinets site, custom means sitting down with a blank sheet of paper with the person who will be making your cabinets or built-ins and designing exactly what it is you need and want for cabinetry. Prices in this category can range from $400 to $500, $800, or $1,000 or more per linear foot. Again, the 10' kitchen above could start at $8,000 and go up. A typical, full-sized, custom kitchen job can easily cost well over $30,000. To put custom woodwork pricing into perspective, think about any item you could buy in a store, wood or otherwise. Consider a kitchen faucet. You can buy a functional faucet for around $100 that will do everything you need it to, for a few months, anyway. You would then expect that the knobs may break, leaks might start, the finish might tarnish, etc. when you pay this little. However, if you bought a $500 faucet, you would expect, and receive, quality craftsmanship and a quality product.

Now, even on step further, consider going to an area artist or craftsman and asking them to design and fabricate a faucet for your sink that will perform and look as good or better than the mass-produced $500 faucet. This would certainly cost more. Custom woodworking is the same. Handmade products by skilled craftsmen cost more. There are no economies of scale that the mass-producers get to leverage. There are a lot of hobbyist woodworkers out there who will do very fine work for very low prices, but they are not supporting themselves with their hobby.

Why call Rob's Custom Cabinets? As with anything, the more educated you are in the what makes up quality cabinetry, what quality materials offer and how joinery works, the more you will understand the differences in price. Most people realize the difference between a polyester suit and a wool suit, but not everyone can tell you what makes up a quality cabinet (or built-in). Rob's Custom Cabinets understands that not everyone knows wool taste, a wool budget, or even wool needs. While we would like to, unfortunately, Rob's Custom Cabinets can't take the time to educate every caller about the differences between mediocre and quality cabinetry. The differences are in the details of design, materials, construction, and finishing. These elements differentiate quality cabinetry from the rest. It takes years to develop the skills necessary to create truly custom products.

Hopefully, this discourse has helped you to understand Rob's Custom Cabinets' position in this market.