Built-Ins and Wall Units designed, built and installed for Santa Monica — century-old bungalows a mile from salt air, on streets with nowhere to park. Our Los Angeles showroom downtown serves the Westside daily.
California built-ins tend to be low, horizontal and continuous, because that is what suits both the mid-century stock and most contemporary building here. The discipline is restraint — a long, quiet run with a considered reveal reads better in these houses than a tall storage wall. Where the joinery meets glazing, and it usually does, the reveal between the two has to be drawn rather than left to the site.
The bungalow stock is small-roomed and full of original detail. The usual project takes one wall out and then works hard to make the new cabinetry belong to a house built a century ago.
Streets are dense and parking is genuinely difficult. Deliveries are booked, permitted where required, and kept short.
Ocean air reaches most of the city, and it is closer to a marine environment than people expect a mile inland. Hardware and finishes are specified accordingly rather than as though this were a dry inland market.
What follows applies to every built-ins & wall unit we make, in Santa Monica and everywhere else.
Built-in joinery is what makes a room feel finished rather than furnished. A media wall, a library, a bar, a window seat, a home office — each one turns an awkward wall or an unused alcove into something the room needs, and each one has to be set out to the architecture rather than dropped in front of it.
In an older property the profiles are matched to what is already there; in a contemporary one the reveals do the work instead.
Shelf spacing, panel widths and reveals are drawn to the wall's real dimensions and to what is going on the shelves.
Power, data, ventilation and cable routes are designed into the joinery, not chased in afterwards.
More on how we approach this → Built-Ins & Wall Units
We work throughout Santa Monica, including North of Montana, Ocean Park, Sunset Park and Wilshire-Montana. The housing here is Craftsman and Spanish bungalows, 1920s and 1930s apartment buildings, and contemporary rebuilds north of Montana, and the cabinetry is specified for it rather than to a national standard.
Our Los Angeles showroom downtown serves the Westside daily. The showroom is at 506 S Spring St. Visit when it suits, or start by sending the plans and we will come back with a number per room.
Every project is photographed room by room with the materials and the detailing listed, so you can see how a job like this is actually put together before you commit to one.
See the built-ins & wall units we have built
You can also search every finish we specify and every appliance we design around.
One shop draws, finishes and installs all of it, which is why the closet matches the kitchen and there is one number to call when something needs adjusting.
Book a free 30-minute consultation with a designer who works in Santa Monica every week. Send the drawings if you have them — we will itemise the cabinetry by room.
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