Sun-Facing Kitchens for Potrero Hill Cottages and Lofts

PineWood Cabinets designs, builds and installs custom kitchens and cabinetry for Potrero Hill homeowners remodeling Victorian cottages, flats, lofts and newer hillside houses. Every cabinet is built and finished in our Rocklin, Placer County workshop and delivered shop-finished, and our own crew makes the roughly two-hour drive to San Francisco to measure, plan the carry and install.

Potrero Hill rises on the east side of the city between the Mission and the bay, separated from the Mission by the freeway and from Dogpatch and the waterfront by the slope down toward Pennsylvania Avenue and Third Street. Twin Peaks takes the brunt of the marine layer, so the hill is famously sunny, and the north slope looks straight at downtown and the bay. The housing is a mix. Modest Victorian workers’ cottages and flats from the late 1800s and early 1900s line the cross streets and the blocks around 18th and 20th Streets; Vermont Street has its own crooked block between 20th and 22nd; and the lower slopes toward Dogpatch and the freeway hold converted industrial buildings, 1990s and 2000s lofts and newer condo and townhouse projects.

Each type asks something different of the kitchen. The cottages are small, with low ceilings in the oldest ones, a kitchen at the back and often a later addition or a garden-level room below. The flats repeat the city’s pattern of a narrow kitchen at the end of the hall. The lofts put the kitchen on one wall of a tall open volume, where it has to hold its own as furniture. And the north-slope houses, old or new, have been reworked around the view, so the kitchen opens to a living room with glass across the front. Almost every project here is some version of making a small or awkward kitchen work harder and look as if it belongs.

The hill itself shapes delivery. Streets are steep, some of the cottages sit well above or below the sidewalk, and most have no driveway, while the loft buildings have elevators, corridors and HOA rules of their own. We measure every stair, hall, elevator cab and door between the curb and the kitchen, build the cabinetry in modules sized to pass through them, and schedule delivery so the crew carries and sets it the same day.

The building permit for a Potrero Hill kitchen remodel comes from the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection. Work that changes the exterior, including enlarged openings toward the view, decks and additions, or that affects a building the city considers a historic resource, can also go through Planning Department review; interior cabinetry and finish work within the existing footprint generally does not. Moving walls, gas or plumbing moves the project into a fuller permit, and in a loft or condo building the association usually has its own approval step. We identify which path a design falls into before the drawings are finished.

Potrero Hill is the sunny side of San Francisco. The hill sits east of Twin Peaks, the fog often burns off here while the west side stays grey, and a south- or west-facing kitchen with large windows sees real direct light for much of the year. The air is still cool and marine, so wood moves less than it does in our hot, dry home valley, but sun exposure adds a consideration the fog belt does not have: ultraviolet light changes the color of wood and can yellow or fade some finishes over time. We respond with catalyzed finishes carrying UV inhibitors, applied in our Rocklin finishing facility so every face arrives sealed, and with honest advice on species: white oak and painted maple hold their color well, while walnut and cherry shift over time and should be chosen knowing that.

The upside of the sun is range. Potrero Hill kitchens can carry stained oak, walnut, deep painted colors and a contrasting island without the room closing in, which makes the hill one of the few places in the city where the darker, warmer palette of a loft or a view kitchen works as well as the light one.