How To Install Wood Flooring After Cabinets

The most difficult part of forming this type of installation is being able to cut close to the toe kick of the base cabinets without damaging the cabin.

How to install wood flooring after cabinets.

To keep the floor flush consider installing a different cheaper type of flooring underneath cabinets and appliances or even plywood risers. Traditionally hardwood flooring is more commonly installed prior to the cabinets and sanded and finished as one of the last steps but with the increasing popularity of prefinished hardwood flooring the risks of damage during installation becomes greater. Those are all good reasons to lay a kitchen floor after the cabinets are in. The potential of mismatched flooring one downside of installing risers or different flooring is that you add a complication if you wish to change the kitchen footprint in the future.

If you re installing hardwood floors in an existing kitchen it is possible to run your hardwood floors up to the base cabinet toe kick. I would also consider what you would do in the event you had a leak and needed to replace flooring you d have to either remove your cabinets or cut around your cabinets. But if you have to install the flooring first here s a method that will avoid some of the problems i just described. You would not want your dishwasher to be trapped underneath the floor and.

My worry about doing that would be if your floor isn t 100 level and flat the cabinets will still need to be shimmed and it will show. Why it s better to install the hardwood floors before the cabinets. I would install flooring after cabinets.