The Santa Barbara Home and Garden show is just around the corner.  Rubottom Cabinets will, of course, be there. The show runs from February 27th - 28th at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara.  Please come out to the show, we'd love to see you and discuss your project.  We will have our designers on hand, and, if it's not too busy, we'll discuss your project and possibly do some drawing on the computer.  Bring your measurements on a sheet of paper -- the more details the better, and cutouts from magazines or from our website with kitchen design ideas and questions.

The W.L. Rubottom Cabinets Display

We are planning on showing a complete kitchen with appliances.  We are developing it now.  Our goal is to show an elegant, custom kitchen design.  The design we're working on is full size and demonstrates the advantages of having truly custom kitchen cabinets produced by a local and modern cabinet maker.  In the interest of explaining our design thoughts for this show and to demonstrate how we put a custom kitchen project together from inception to drawing to manufacturing, I've scanned in the drawings below.  Click here to check out our working drawings.

I don't go into the shop every day, but I should. 

Alder Hood

Walking through today I was impressed by some interesting work and materials.  On one assembly table Flor had a simply enormous and complicated hood cabinet he was building out of alder.  The functional design of this cabinet is quite impressive.  It will be interesting to see how it installs in the kitchen.

Douglas Fir Linen

On the next table Jim had a simple linen, but it was the Douglas Fir material that was striking.  The hearty straight grain of the Fir will be beautiful on this tall cabinet. I'm excited to see these cabinets when they're finished and installed.  Updates to follow...

There is something about the dovetail drawer that connotes quality.  A dovetail is a type of woodworking joint.  To quote Wikipedia: "A dovetail joint or simply dovetail is a joint technique most commonly used in woodworking joinery. Noted for its resistance to being pulled apart (tensile strength), the dovetail joint is commonly used to join for example the sides of a drawer to the front. A series of pins cut to extend from the end of one board interlock with a series of tails cut into the end of another board. The pins and tails have a trapezoidal shape. Once glued, a wooden dovetail joint requires no mechanical fasteners."

Dovetail joints have been around for as long as people have skillfully been working with wood and are used in instruments, furniture, and most commonly drawers.  We offer dovetail drawers in a variety of materials, from plywood to solid maple, with side mounted guides or undermount soft-close guides, in our custom cabinets.  The dovetail drawer is not necessarily stronger or nicer than our standard white drawer, but they are certainly a bit, shall we say, "classic".

This is a simple video showing a frameless cabinet coming together.

It is easiest and most compelling for us to take pictures of our big custom cabinet installations.  In part because we dedicate a lot of time and energy in terms of innovation and research to the custom cabinets in the bigger and high end homes, and in part because they photograph well.  As a byproduct we may give the impression that we only want to build and install cabinets for the high end or large home.  However, this is not the case.  We exist to make cabinets and to help home owners, remodelers, and builders create excellent modern and convenient kitchens regardless of the size.  We have resources available for the remodeler, the do-it-yourselfer, and the high-end custom builder.

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The models at Concerto Lofts in Playa Vista, CA feature cabinets by W.L. Rubottom Company.  We built these cabinets in a modified flush overlay style with a frameless box.  The benefit of this construction method is that it is economical because it utilizes our frameless manufacturing methods, but sophisticated and modern in its styling.  This is a cabinet we can produce for a custom project, a remodel, or a large project such as Concerto Lofts.

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Check out the photo gallery on flickr...