Install Tile Floor Before Or After Cabinets

Makes the tile installation much easier due to not needing to cut the tiles around the base of the cabinets.

Install tile floor before or after cabinets.

The flooring contractor will not have to work around existing cabinetry so the work can go that much faster. If they want to change flooring at a later date you don t have to remove the cabinets. Cabinets are installed after the finished floor. Put all the base cabinets in place then mark a line on the subfloor corresponding to the front edge of the toekick.

Installing the floors before the cabinets has some advantages. The benefit of installing the tile assembly after the cabinets stone countertops and other dead loads are installed understanding that the floor was designed to handle these loads is to help ensure the system is placed into compression before the tile is installed meaning the force of downward pressure on the finished installation is minimized. Makes for a clean transition from the tile to cabinets there will be no need for a grout line at the base of the cabinets which runs the risk of moisture wicking up into the wood of the cabinets. All you have to do is pull the kick off remove the old floor covering install the new flooring then put the kick back.

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. 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.