Should You Put Flooring Before Or After Cabinet Installation

Installing your cabinets first will allow for the flooring to expand from temperature differences for the best fitting.

Should you put flooring before or after cabinet installation. The one exception install floating hardwood floors after the cabinets if you are installing a hardwood floating floor or any floating floor such as cork or laminate you should install the floor after the kitchen cabinets are installed. One of the benefits to installing the flooring prior to the cabinets is there will be fewer cuts to make. Installing the floors before the cabinets has some advantages. If you install flooring first some of it is bound to hide beneath your appliances and cabinets.

Floating floors are clicked together and not adhered to the floor. The flooring contractor will not have to work around existing cabinetry so the work can go that much faster. This can save the installer time. Go easy on your wallet by saving floor installation for last.

In most cases given standard flooring heights you will install the cabinets before the floor covering. Put all the base cabinets in place then mark a line on the subfloor corresponding to the front edge of the toekick. But if you have to install the flooring first here s a method that will avoid some of the problems i just described. Whether you go with hardwood tile or vinyl having a wide open room allows for more full pieces of flooring to be installed.

Floor covering or finish flooring is the surface that you see and walk on not the subfloor under the underlayment or underlayment between subfloor and finished layer.