Furniture-Grade Cabinetry for Central Marin
Kitchen Cabinets in Greenbrae, CA
Tucked between Corte Madera Creek and the wooded slopes off Bon Air Road, Greenbrae rewards cabinetry that is measured to the room and built to last. We craft custom kitchen cabinets sized for these mid-century hill houses and creekside homes.
Custom Cabinetry Built for Greenbrae Homes
Greenbrae is an unincorporated pocket of central Marin that most people first meet from the road: the long curve of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard sweeping past the Bon Air Shopping Center, the tidal reach of Corte Madera Creek glinting under the Bon Air Bridge, and the houses climbing the hillsides toward Greenbrae Boardwalk and Eliseo Drive. It is a neighborhood of distinct housing eras, and that history is written directly into its kitchens. Since 2006, PineWood Cabinets has built custom cabinetry for these homes, treating each kitchen as a problem of precise measurement rather than a catalog order.
A great deal of Greenbrae was developed in the postwar decades, and the bones of those years are everywhere: low-slung ranch houses, post-and-beam hillside homes with walls of glass facing Mount Tamalpais, and the tidy creekside residences along the Boardwalk where homes sit close to the water. These are not oversized estate kitchens. They are rooms with real constraints, where a cabinet run has to thread between a window, a soffit, and a structural beam that cannot move. Stock boxes in fixed three-inch increments leave dead fillers and wasted volume in spaces like these. Cabinetry built to the actual dimensions of the room does not.
That is the heart of what we do in Greenbrae. We measure the room as it exists, account for the out-of-square walls that older Marin construction guarantees, and build cabinetry that uses every inch. The result reads as part of the house rather than something installed on top of it.
Materials and Joinery That Hold Up to Marin Air
Greenbrae sits low along a tidal creek, and the marine layer that rolls in over the Ross Valley keeps humidity high for much of the year. Cabinetry built for this microclimate has to be built honestly. We use furniture-grade plywood casework rather than particleboard for cabinet boxes, because plywood resists the seasonal swelling that warps doors and racks drawer boxes in damp coastal air. Solid hardwood face frames, doors, and drawer fronts are milled from kiln-dried stock and finished on all sides so moisture cannot enter through an unsealed edge.
Joinery is where a cabinet earns its longevity. Our drawer boxes are dovetailed solid wood, not stapled together, and they ride on full-extension undermount slides so the back of a deep drawer is as usable as the front. Doors are mortise-and-tenon or cope-and-stick joined, depending on style, and finished with conversion varnishes or hand-rubbed oils chosen for how they wear in a working kitchen rather than how they photograph on day one.
For Greenbrae's mid-century homes, we frequently build flat-panel and slab-front cabinetry in walnut, rift-sawn white oak, or quartersawn species that suit the era's clean lines. For the more traditional creekside cottages, inset doors with a fine reveal and painted finishes feel right at home. The species and finish change from house to house; the standard of construction does not.
Built Into Every Greenbrae Cabinet
- Furniture-grade plywood casework that resists humidity from Corte Madera Creek
- Dovetailed solid-wood drawer boxes on full-extension undermount slides
- Doors finished on all six sides to seal out marine-layer moisture
- Walnut, rift-sawn oak, and painted inset options matched to the home's era
- Scribe-fit installation for the out-of-square walls of older construction
- Soft-close hardware and concealed hinges adjusted on site
Cabinet Solutions for the Way Greenbrae Kitchens Are Used
Storage that earns its footprint, from compact Boardwalk cottages to open-plan hillside homes facing Mount Tam.
Full-Height Pantry Cabinetry
Floor-to-ceiling pantry runs that capture vertical space the original ranch kitchens left empty, with pull-out larders and adjustable shelving.
- Pull-out larder units
- Adjustable interior shelving
- Spice and small-appliance bays
- Concealed appliance garages
Deep Drawer Bases
Drawer-based lower cabinets that replace bend-and-reach lower shelves, sized for cookware, plates, and pantry goods in tighter Greenbrae footprints.
- Pots-and-pans drawer banks
- Peg-board plate organizers
- Heavy-duty 100 lb slides
- Custom dividers per drawer
Corner and Blind-Cabinet Recovery
Engineered corner solutions for the angled and irregular layouts common in hillside homes, turning dead corners into usable storage.
- LeMans and magic-corner pull-outs
- Diagonal corner sinks bases
- Blind-corner access systems
- Custom angled fillers
Island and Peninsula Cabinetry
Seating-side and working-side storage for the islands that anchor open-plan hillside kitchens, with integrated power and waste pull-outs.
- Two-sided storage layout
- Integrated waste and recycling
- Bookcase ends and open shelving
- Posted leg and panel options
Display and Glass-Front Uppers
Lighted glass-door cabinetry that adds depth and reflects the abundant Marin light pouring in from creek-facing and west-facing windows.
- Interior LED lighting
- Glass mullion and seedy-glass options
- Floating shelf integration
- Open and closed mix layouts
Refacing and Cabinet Renewal
For sound cabinet boxes worth keeping, new doors, drawer fronts, and finishes that update a Greenbrae kitchen without a full rebuild.
- New solid-wood door fronts
- Drawer-box upgrades
- Soft-close hardware retrofit
- Color and finish refresh
How We Build Cabinetry for a Greenbrae Kitchen
A measured, shop-built process that protects your home and produces cabinetry fit to the room.
Field Measure
We measure your Greenbrae kitchen in detail, documenting beams, soffits, windows, and the out-of-square walls typical of central Marin construction.
Layout & Selection
We present a cabinet layout, storage plan, and material samples, choosing species and finish to suit your home, whether mid-century slab or traditional inset.
Shop Fabrication
Your cabinetry is built in our shop with dovetailed drawers, dialed-in joinery, and finishes applied in a controlled environment, not on a dusty job site.
Scribe-Fit Install
We deliver and install with care, scribing cabinets to the walls, leveling on the hillside floors, and adjusting every door and drawer before we leave.
Cabinetry Made for Greenbrae's Particular Homes
Few Marin neighborhoods are as architecturally specific as Greenbrae. The flats near the Bon Air Shopping Center and Marin General hold ranch houses with original kitchens that have aged past their useful life. The Boardwalk homes sit almost on the water of Corte Madera Creek, where space is at a premium and humidity is constant. And up the hillsides off Eliseo Drive and toward Kent Woodlands, post-and-beam homes open dramatically toward Mount Tamalpais and demand cabinetry that respects long, uninterrupted sightlines.
Generic cabinetry does not serve any of these well. A creekside cottage needs moisture-tolerant construction and clever small-space storage. A hillside post-and-beam needs low, horizontal cabinet lines that do not interrupt the view. A flat ranch kitchen needs full-height storage to recover the volume the original builders ignored. We design and build for the house in front of us.
Greenbrae also sits in the middle of everything in the Ross Valley. From our work here it is a short reach into Larkspur, Kentfield, and Corte Madera, and we routinely coordinate installs around the realities of central Marin: narrow hillside access, tight Boardwalk lanes, and the bridge traffic along Sir Francis Drake.
Creekside Cottages
Moisture-tolerant casework and compact, hardworking storage for the Boardwalk homes along the water.
Hillside Post-and-Beam
Low, horizontal cabinetry that preserves the Mount Tam views these mid-century homes were built to frame.
Bon Air Ranch Homes
Full-height pantries and deep drawer banks that recover the storage the original postwar kitchens left on the table.
Greenbrae Kitchen Cabinet Questions
What homeowners in central Marin most often ask us about cabinetry.
Will custom cabinets hold up to the humidity near Corte Madera Creek?
Yes, when they are built for it. We use furniture-grade plywood casework that resists the seasonal swelling caused by Greenbrae's marine-layer humidity, and we finish doors and drawer fronts on every face so moisture cannot wick in through an unsealed edge. This is exactly why we steer away from particleboard boxes in low-lying creekside homes.
Can you fit cabinetry into the irregular layouts of a hillside home?
That is one of the advantages of building custom. Many Greenbrae hillside houses have angled walls, exposed beams, and floors that are not perfectly level. We field-measure those conditions, build cabinetry to the real dimensions, and scribe each piece to the wall on installation so the run fits cleanly rather than leaving filler gaps or rocking on an uneven floor.
Do I need a full remodel, or can you just replace the cabinets?
Many of our Greenbrae projects are cabinetry-only. If your layout works and your boxes are sound, refacing with new solid-wood doors, drawer fronts, and finishes can transform the kitchen. If the boxes are failing or the layout fights you, new custom cabinetry is the better investment. We will tell you honestly which path fits your kitchen after we see it.
How long does a cabinet project take in Greenbrae?
It varies with the size of the kitchen and the materials chosen, since most of the work happens in our shop before installation. We give you a realistic schedule once we have measured and finalized the design, and we coordinate the install around access realities here, from narrow Boardwalk lanes to steep hillside driveways, so the on-site phase stays as short and tidy as possible.
Explore More Across Marin County
More cabinetry services for Greenbrae homes, and neighboring central-Marin communities we serve.
Ready to Build Cabinetry for Your Greenbrae Kitchen?
From the Boardwalk to the Bon Air hills, we build custom kitchen cabinets measured to your home and finished to last. Let's talk about your project.