Custom Garage Cabinets in Laguna Beach, CA

Garages That Arrived After the Houses

American Craftsman bungalows from the early 1900s dot the downtown and South Laguna areas. There were about 300 residents here in 1920 and roughly 1,900 by the time the city incorporated in 1927, and houses of that age were not drawn around cars, let alone two of them and a paddleboard. Between 1980 and 1981 the city surveyed its building stock and classified 706 homes and structures as historically significant, which tells you how much of it predates modern garage design.

On a bungalow-era property the garage usually came later, at the back of the lot, off a lane, or squeezed beside the house. Depth often falls short of what a current builder would allow, ceilings can be low or open to the rafters, and the walls are not the flat, plumb, studded surfaces a modular run expects.

That rules out an off-the-shelf garage, not a fitted one. Custom garage cabinets start from the room as it is: wall bow, out-of-square corners, and where the framing actually sits.

Hillside Garages

The city runs from the water up to Temple Hill at 1,007 feet, and the terrain shows up in the garages. On the canyons and hillsides a garage may be dug into the slope with earth behind a wall or two, sit under the living space, or open onto a driveway steep enough that anything on wheels rolls unless it is chocked.

Three things follow. A wall with soil behind it can carry moisture, so cabinetry there wants an air gap and the least moisture-sensitive contents. A sloping floor has to be leveled to, not assumed away. And a garage below the house sees water first, which argues for getting every base up off the concrete.

What Ends Up in the Garage Here

The city has 7 miles of coastline with 27 beaches and coves, and tourism is the primary industry, with an estimated six million people visiting each year. Beach equipment therefore stays in circulation most of the year instead of being packed away: chairs, umbrellas, coolers, snorkel gear, boards, and a wagon to haul it down to a cove.

Laguna has also been an art town since the early 1900s, when painters settled here and formed the Art Association. The precursors to the Festival of Arts and the Pageant of the Masters began in 1921, and both were established in their present-day form in 1936. Garages in this city hold canvases, stretcher bars, frames, easels, drop cloths and paint more often than garages elsewhere do. Canvases need to be stored upright and on edge with air around them, not flat under a box, and paint and solvents want a closed low cabinet away from the work surface. Vertical dividers do more for that material than shelves do.

Walls First in a Single-Bay Garage

When the room is short and narrow, the floor is what you cannot spare, so custom garage cabinets here go up before they go down. Wall-mounted units fix into the framing and keep the concrete under them free, so a bike, a wagon or a barrel slides underneath and the floor can be washed without going around anything.

Cabinets that stand on the floor still earn their place for weight and depth: hand tools in drawers, a tall unit for a ladder, the run beneath a work surface. Set them on a plinth or on adjustable feet, hold the underside clear of the slab, and tie them into the studs. Where width is tight, shallow units down the long side at a height that clears an open car door, with full depth kept for the back wall, is usually the answer.

Overhead, Where the Rafters Allow

Older detached garages sometimes have open rafters and real height, and sometimes almost nothing above the door track. We take the clear height with the door fully raised, note how far the track and any opener project, and then decide what can hang from the structure.

Where the framing supports it, overhead storage is the cheapest volume in the building and should hold what you reach for a few times a year, not the weekly items. Older ceiling framing is not always sized for a loaded rack, so this is worth asking about directly: ask how the mounting gets checked against what is actually up there before a rack is specified.

A Work Surface That Fits

A workshop bench needs depth these garages do not have. What does fit is a counter at standing height across the back wall with drawers beneath, wide enough to lay out a frame, repair a bike, or work on a board, and narrow enough that a car still parks in front of it. A pull-out or fold-down extension gives you the depth occasionally without giving up the floor permanently.

Any surface expected to take clamping or a vise has to be built for it rather than assumed, so ask which worktop materials are available and what each is rated to carry. Add outlets and task light while the walls are accessible.

Closed Fronts or Open Shelves

Open shelves cost less per foot and are quicker to reach into, and they take on dust, grit and whatever blows in through a raised door. Fronts keep contents clean and the wall calm, which counts in a garage doubling as a studio.

A workable split: fronts on the runs holding paper, textiles, camping equipment and art supplies, open shelving for bins, buckets and the beach gear that moves every week, and open hooks for long items, since nothing needing a door opened in front of it gets put back.

Coastal Air in a Dry Climate

Laguna Beach has a cold semi-arid climate, so a garage here is dry much of the year and the moisture that counts comes off the ocean air, off washing down, and off wet gear carried back up from a cove. In an unconditioned room this near the water, the metal goes first. Slides, hinges, hooks, brackets and fixings deserve as much thought as the boxes, so ask what coatings the hardware carries and settle that before the order goes in.

The remedies are dull and they work. Hold cabinet backs off an exterior or earth-retaining wall so air can move. Never shut damp towels or a wetsuit into a closed unit. Band exposed panel edges. Keep paint, adhesives and canvases low and on an interior wall rather than overhead, since the top of an unconditioned garage runs warmer than the bottom.

The Measurement Visit and the Install

Coast Highway, State Route 133 and El Toro Road are the routes in and out, and the streets off them are narrow and often steep, so part of the visit is checking the approach and where a delivery can stand. Inside, we note usable width with the car in place, clear height, track travel, where the panel, water heater, laundry and hose bib sit, how the floor falls, and which walls have earth or living space behind them.

A drawing follows, wall by wall, with finishes and a written price ahead of fabrication. Custom garage cabinets set inside an existing garage are an interior fit-out and leave the shell alone, which is worth knowing in a city with this much historic building stock. Anything structural or external is a separate conversation with the City of Laguna Beach, and where a job reaches that point it is worth establishing early who files the application and who books the inspection. Empty the garage before install day.

Related Pages and Nearby Coastal Cities

The rest of the range sits on the custom cabinets hub. If the problem is inside the house instead, start with custom closets. South along the coast we work in Dana Point, which borders Laguna Beach, and further down in San Clemente; up the coast there is Newport Beach.

Garage Cabinet Questions from Laguna Beach

Can a garage from the bungalow era be fitted out, or is it too small and too irregular?

It can, and irregularity is the reason to build it rather than buy it. Older garages commonly have walls that are out of plumb or out of square and framing that does not sit where you would expect. Everything is measured on site and made to those dimensions, so the run fits the wall you have.

Does cabinetry in the garage affect a historically significant house?

Storage installed inside the garage is an interior fit-out and does not change the shell or the street elevation. Anything structural, or anything altering the outside of the building, is a different matter and needs to be raised with the city before work starts.

What can be done with a garage built into the hillside?

Plenty, with attention to the buried walls. Cabinets on a wall with soil behind it get held off the surface so air can move, moisture-sensitive items go elsewhere, and floor-standing units are leveled to the actual slope rather than assumed flat.

Where do canvases and art materials go?

Upright and on edge in vertical dividers, with air on both faces, rather than stacked flat under other things. Paint, mediums and solvents belong in a closed low cabinet away from the work surface, and finished pieces should stay off an exterior or earth-retaining wall.

Is overhead storage possible in an old detached garage?

Sometimes, and it depends on the framing rather than the ceiling height alone. The clear height gets taken with the door raised, and what the structure above actually consists of matters more than the measurement. Ask how that gets checked before a rack is specified, since older framing is not always sized for a loaded one.

How is beach gear best stored if it is in use most of the year?

Near the door, on open storage, so it can be grabbed and put back without opening anything. Wet items go where water can drain onto the slab rather than into a cabinet base, and the closed storage is saved for things that need to stay clean and dry.