Hello Cabinet enthusiasts,
This is the
first post of Bay Custom Cabinets, so we figured we could start from the
beginning.
It all began
in a garage in Capitola on Court Drive. Dan O'Bannon was 32 at the time and had
already been a cabinet maker for ten years. With the help of his father Bob, a
carpenter / cabinet maker from the Los Angeles area, he purchased a used 2
horse power craftsman table saw, the heart of the shop, and he was off and
running. As jobs all over Santa Cruz County started to flow in, including
Aptos, Soquel, Watsonville, and as far as San Jose, and Monterey, Dan needed to
move into a bigger shop. After jumping around a bit, he finally settled on a
2,000 sq ft shop on Porter St. in Soquel. In the process of expansion, Dan began
to train his two brothers, Jeff and Larry, as cabinet makers Apprentices and
now production was tripled. They used an old school method of layout and design
called the story pole, where each kitchen was designated its own layout stick
so that each cabinet could be marked out in real time and double checked
throughout the building process, to get the customer exactly what they want as
well as decrease the chance of mistakes.
Though many changes have been made in the industry, for instance cabinet
interiors went from unfinished pine or fir to melamine and now to pre-finished
maple, this story pole method is the one we continue to use today. Other changes have been; door hinges and
drawer guides, from the wood on wood monorail system to the sleek, soft close Blum
Motion. The invention of the wide belt
sander, called the ‘Time Saver’ did just that and allowed us to sand large
quantities of face frames in one fowl swoop.
As time went
on it was once again time to move. We
needed a ranch, a place with more room and a house. With this in mind Dan and his son Matt, moved into the shop with
the intention of saving up. Looking
back, this time is what inspired me to be a wood worker. Years passed and the opportunity was found
out in Watsonville, near Freedom. Dan
asked Jeff and his daughter Bri, to go in with him on the property, and it was
dubbed the O’Bannon Ranch. They
expanded further into the Silicon Valley area and into places like Carmel,
until it was time for Matt to start his apprenticeship. Learning from his uncles and father, Matt
got a crash course and as work picked up they were able to take on more
apprentices, first Alex Rodriguez and finally Larry’s boy, Ian O’Bannon. Now the team was assembled, with a crew that
resembled the Avengers or the Justice League, only rather than saving the world
with brute strength or the ability to fly, we were doing it one cabinet at a
time. We are Bay Custom Cabinets,
American made since 1985.
