The Passionate Carpenter

If you’re thinking of redoing your kitchen or bathroom with beautiful cabinetry – or, really, overhauling anything in your home that involves wood – you should probably also be thinking about Bill Buck.

“Woodworking? It’s in my blood,” he says simply.

For Buck, cabinetry is more than just something to stow your dishes and toiletries out of sight. What’s special about Buck is that with his touch, cabinetry is elevated to art. His work is more like fine furniture, carefully designed and lovingly crafted for beauty, for purpose, for endurance.

In the 1920’s – when Buck’s carpenter grandfather came ashore on the Big Apple’s bustling piers and left Ireland behind forever – people used to say your profession is your “calling.” Two generations later, Buck has made his grandfather’s calling his own – centering his life around a passion for cabinetry and crafting wood into beautiful objects for the home.

Buck’s Pasadena-based company, Plumbridge Custom Cabinets – named after the tiny town of Plumbridge, Ireland, which his grandfather hails from – was founded in 1988. Buck first started out as a painting contractor, going back to school to earn a degree in Economics from UCLA, and eventually discovering his passion for wood craft after graduation, remodeling homes in ritzy Bel Air.

“I just said ‘Screw the masters degree, I’m going to go back to this,’” he laughs. “So, after that ended, I opened up my own cabinet shop and been in this business ever since.”

Today Buck runs the company with his wife Jae, who handles the PR side of the business. All of the key employees also own part of the company, ensuring that everyone is really dedicated to Buck’s same goal: producing beautiful, quality cabinetry that’s built to last.

“What I really enjoy is the design aspect,” explains Buck. “Cabinets can be just like wall-to-wall zing. I consider them as something that’s beautiful and should bring visual enjoyment to you every time you walk into the room, you should get that feeling and that’s what I try to achieve.”

Buck approaches the craft of cabinet making with the same skill and intent as an old wood artesian, ensuring that cabinets have symmetry and high-quality finishes just like furniture. New technology has ensured that – combined with the artist’s attention to detail – cabinet designs can be incredibly precise. Computer programs draft and create 3-D models of the designs.

“It’s pretty high tech,” he explains. “I actually design it in this 3-D space. And then, the computer translates all that information into instructions for its CNC.”

When Buck’s team cuts, and fits together the parts, they’ve been meticulously calculated by the computer program, essentially erasing the margin of error altogether.

Buck, who loves to cook and is married to a trained pastry chef, designs kitchens customized to fit a family’s needs precisely, addressing questions like how you are going to use your kitchen, or how many people are typically in there cooking.

But what really sets him apart, is his love of the craft – and his customers.

“I am really a dedicated craftsman. My question is, ‘Will this last 50 years?’ If the answer is no, we’re not going to do it like that,” he explains.

“And, secondly, I develop relationships with my clients. Most of my clients are friends. Because the way I look at customers, customers are like trees, if you plant them, then you nurture them, years down the road, you’re bearing some fruit, you’ll bear some references. And those references, if you nurture those will bear fruit and pretty soon, you’ll have an orchard.”

He laughs. “That’s the way I see my business.”

To contact Plumbridge Custom Cabinets call Bill Buck at (626) 256-9337.