What comes first Flooring or Cabinets

Hi , this is Keith with how to build your own home .

This is a weekly bonus and that's a little pet peeve I have , but it's something I do in the way I practice my construction projects and has to do with flooring .

Uh A lot of times , uh flooring installer wanna come in after cabinets .

I don't like that .

I like my flooring down before .

Not my cabinets are installed .

Now , I know a lot of flooring manufacturers were freaking out when I say that .

Oh , no , no .

Our , our , our , our floor is designed to float .

You can't do that right now .

And I , I , I kind of ignore that for the most part if I can , especially with uh vinyl flooring , like here's a vinyl floor down here .

We've installed in the , in the bathroom here and we've installed the vinyl as you see all the way down except for a small cut out section where your plumbing is gonna come .

Now , they typically say they don't like the flooring to go underneath the cabinets , but I don't like putting in flooring around the cabinets because you typically have to cut right to it and you have that ugly quarter inch round , you know , trim right at the base and doesn't look clean .

So what I tell my cabinet installers is mount it to the wall .

Ok .

Let it sit on the floor lightly , but mount it to the wall , but don't mount it to the floor .

Let that just uh uh live freely as , as best you possibly can .

Same thing in here for a little kitchenette .

Let's go in here .

I would have a , if you have a little island here , I'd still put the floor down first .

Now , if that island needs to be mounted to the floor , obviously , it does .

But now I can take a saw go down to a quarter inch and I can cut out perfectly where I need to put that island .

That's why I like to put the floor in first for tile .

It's great .

You obviously want to put your tile in first before you put your flooring down .

But if you can put your flooring down before your cabinets , it's going to make things much easier .

You can see right here , you don't have to have a , a tile go or the vinyl floor go all the way up against the wall .

Obviously , that's going to be hidden by the cabinets .

But now your install for your flooring is much easier and I'm not gonna have them mount it to the floor .

We'll mount it to the wall .

I've got some good king studs , some trimmers a lot of stud work behind here .

I can literally let it sit on the vinyl , mount it to the wall .

I'm good .

You don't need to glue it .

You don't really need to mount that to the floor .

I've never really seen cabinet guys do that every once in a while on a slab on grade , they'll want to do that .

They want to put a little bit of glue on the base of that cabinet , but I put really heavy countertops on there .

It's really gonna weigh that down anyway .

I've never had any problem with a free floating floor that's just floating underneath that cabinet , especially when it's mounted on the wall .

Uh I know kind of going out of the norm here .

A lot of people are just probably gonna freak out on that .

That's what I do .

I do not like to put my flooring after the cabinets .

I love to get all my flooring down before it's a cleaner look .

And there are some , I know stellar innovations has a great three quarter inch , um , solid wood floor and they tell you that you can put your cabinets on top of it .

I'll , I'll put a link of that flooring in the description box below and you want to check that that's something you're gonna want to ask about whether you're using engineer wood , whether you're using a luxury vinyl product , whatever it may be .

Ask , can I put my cabinets on top of the flooring .

Are you going to allow for that ?

If not , the other option is put it down , have them come measure for the cabinets and then tell them they can tell you where the cabinets are going to end .

And then you can cut that in a clean line with a , with a saw right on the floor rather than trying to butt it right up , making it look nice .

My issue is I have speed of install for my flooring guys .

I have ease of access for my cabinet guys at the same time and then I can obviously cut it off if I need to just as a quarter inch .

I'm not going all the way down to the subfloor .

So anyway , it's just one of my things that I deal with a lot of the times I love to get my flooring in as soon as I possibly can right after paint , not before , of course , but right after paint and let all my cabinet guys come in after that .

This is Keith counts with how to build your own home .

Hope that helps you out .