Should You Put Flooring Before Or After Cabinet Installation

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.

Should you put flooring before or after cabinet installation. Installing the floors before the cabinets has some advantages. But if you have to install the flooring first here s a method that will avoid some of the problems i just described. Those are all good reasons to lay a kitchen floor after the cabinets are in. The flooring contractor will not have to work around existing cabinetry so the work can go that much faster.

There s really no need to panel these obscured areas. The finish can be applied after the cabinet installation lessening concerns about marring the floors during the remodel. In most cases given standard flooring heights you will install the cabinets before the floor covering. If you install flooring first some of it is bound to hide beneath your appliances and cabinets.

This can save the installer time. Installing your cabinets first will allow for the flooring to expand from temperature differences for the best fitting. Put all the base cabinets in place then mark a line on the subfloor corresponding to the front edge of the toekick. 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.

Floating floors are clicked together and not adhered to the floor.