City Cabinets, a spin-off of our original Barker Cabinets (barkercabinets.com) line, takes a distinct approach. While Barker Cabinets strictly relies on American-made parts, City Cabinets emphasizes international sourcing to deliver a custom cabinet line of comparable quality at a significantly reduced cost. City Cabinets employs the same construction method, door styles, and overall design as Barker Cabinets (making them virtually identical from an external perspective). However, the differences lie within the cabinet case, specifically in the unseen components, where we procure plywood, drawer slides, and drawer box raw materials from global suppliers.
This flexible sourcing strategy enables City Cabinets to swiftly adapt to price fluctuations in the dynamic cabinet market while still providing the high-end features synonymous with other lines, such as Barker Cabinets.
OUR HISTORY
In the early 2000s, we developed a frameless construction method to supply cabinets in Hawaii. Importing into Hawaii presented challenges due to the prohibitive cost of shipping large containers. Research led us to create a cabinet product that could be shipped "flat packed," eliminating the full container charge associated with shipping to Hawaii. Our goal was to offer quality suitable for multi-million dollar, high-end homes in Lanai, Maui, Hawaii, and Kauai. Working closely with Italian machinery experts, American material suppliers, and Austrian hardware suppliers, we developed an award-winning full-overlay, ready-to-assemble cabinet that sets the standard for high-end custom cabinets in today's marketplace.
The 2008 global housing recession compelled us to differentiate ourselves in the new marketplace. Over the years, we've adapted to the needs of a constantly changing market:
- 1978: Enter Olson Barker Cabinets Inc., focusing on high-end fully custom cabinets for the Pacific Northwest marketplace.
- 2011: Launched the Barker Cabinets line (barkercabinets.com), offering fully custom, high-end cabinets with American sourcing.
- 2016: Launched the Barker Modern line (barkermodern.com), a similar line to Barker Cabinets but with a focus on a modern aesthetic, featuring slab laminate doors imported from Italy and Spain.
- 2023: Introduced City Cabinets, a budget line manufactured in Oregon, prioritizing low-priced fully custom cabinets sourced from the finest materials and hardware suppliers the global market can offer.
