Kitchen cab install

[Don]

Installing a kitchen for a freind. Any problems with installing cabinets before flooring? It would be convenient to get cabs in as flooring might take a few to arrive. Thanks

[Doug Miller]

There are several problems with installing base cabinets before the flooring:

It's *much* easier to install the flooring if you don't have to cut it to fit around cabinets.

Installing flooring wall-to-wall, before the cabinets go in, provides much better protection from spilled liquids (and easier cleanup besides).

Some time in the future, that kitchen is going to get remodeled again. Next time around, the arrangement of the cabinets may be different. If you've laid the floor covering wall-to-wall, it can remain (if it's still in good shape) or new floor covering can be laid directly over it. But if you've cut it to fit the cabinets, it will have to be removed, and probably the underlayment along with it, making the job a *lot* bigger than it needs to be.

It doesn't matter nearly as much with the wall cabinets: they can go up before the floor covering is laid, but they get in the way when you're running a floor roller over the floor.

IMO the easiest order is floor, wall cabinets, base cabinets.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

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[Swingman]

It depends upon the type of floor and the substrate. Tile, linoleum or something thin, no problem. Anything that will cause you to lose cabinet height and toe kick space can be a problem.

[Leon]

There can be a problem with respect to the dish washer. Buy some cheap tile or what ever your flooring is going to be and put it down where the dish washer and cabinets will be to raise the floor to the approximate level that your finished floor will be at and set the cabinets/dish washer on that. If you put the new floor around the cabinets removing or replacing some dish washers will be very hard to get past that lip that the new floor presents.

[Tom M]

Just make sure you will have the height you need for your dishwasher, compactor or any other undercounter appliance, after the finished flooring goes in. You might need to fur up the base cabinets to get the height you need.. Tom

[skeezics]

shim under the cabs to the thickness of your flooring and run flooring into dishwasher pocket. you will need the hight to get the dishwasher in and you will need flooring under the dishwasher in order to get it out one day.

skeez

[Mike]

If you are going back with just vinyl you will probably be okay at the dishwasher. But if the flooring is thicker than that, turn the cabinets over and add firing strips to the bottom of the cabinets the same thickness as your new flooring (including the thickness of any underlayment that might be needed). You will probably have to use shoe around the cabinets to cover where the flooring meets the cabinets anyway so any gaps will be covered then. We often have to do this in new homes when tile is used in the kitchen. The tile guys use a concrete board underlayment that is sometimes 1/2" thick and then the tile which can be anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2". If you don't do something the dishwasher will not slide under the cabinets.

Mike O.