Castro Valley Kitchen, December 2024

This Castro Valley kitchen was a straightforward install, a single run of cabinets along one wall. It was helped by a house with good bones. The structure was pretty level, which isn’t something we can take for granted in Bay Area homes, and it made every step of the install go smoother.

The cabinets went in over a waterproofing layer laid on the wooden plank subfloor. That’s a sound way to do it. A moisture barrier under the cabinets protects the subfloor from the leaks and spills that come with a kitchen sink and dishwasher. What matters is that the cabinets sit on the structure itself, not on a finished floor. As we explain in our Berkeley kitchen cabinets write-up, cabinets installed over a finished floor can shift as it compresses, and they trap that floor in place if it ever needs replacing. Here, they’re anchored to the subfloor, where they belong.

Even with a level structure, cabinets have to be set carefully. Base cabinets with counters on top almost always finish at 36 inches high, with the uppers 18 inches above the counter, and every cabinet in the run has to line up with its neighbors front to back and up and down. We check each one as it goes in, shim where the floor or wall varies even slightly, and screw it into studs so it’s solid and stable before the countertop arrives. Look down the front edge of a well-installed run and it should read as one straight line.

That precision is about more than looks. Cabinets that are planed out and level give the countertop a flat, fully supported base, make the doors and drawers hang and close evenly, and give the backsplash tile a true line to start from. Small errors in the cabinets show up everywhere after them.

It’s also where design and carpentry meet. Good design in a kitchen is about how a room communicates: clean lines, even reveals, and consistent gaps tell you someone thought about the space. Careful carpentry is what makes that design read the way it was intended.