We didn't put tile all the way under our cabinets. But my DH did run the tile a few inches under instead of butting the tile up to the cabinets. I'd suggest doing this with yours also for a more finished look. He somehow lifted the cabinets up the appropriate tile thickness dimension (in your case the wood floor thickness dimension)so that he could later on go back and slide the flooring just under the front of the cabinets. He didn't put plywood under the whole area, he said it was a waste of money. Somehow he put plywood just under the edges of the cabinets to lift them up the appropriate dimension.

It does seem like a waste of money putting finished floors under the cabinets, doesn't it?

There are no hardwood under our cabinets. Only under the frig, stove and dishwasher - anything that pulls out.

We used plywood under our built in fridge and Capital range. I had nightmares that they would sink in the cork floor and somehow would cause the end of the world. We just painted the edges to match the cork, in case a bit ever peeked out. All is good and they are level with the floor, in case they ever have to be removed (God forbid).

That is exactly what I did. The oak runs only 2" under the bases. No one will ever see it!

Well, it might save you time now, in that you don't have to wait to install the cabinets, but it will slow down the floor install to have to cut around all of the cabinets. Since you'll also have to pay for the labor and materials to put down the plywood, and you'll have to pay more labor for the wood install (more cutting = more $$), it's usually more expensive to do it this way than to run your expensive flooring from wall to wall.

In other words, it all depends on how fast your cabinet installers are vs. your floor installers. Whoever takes the longest time is who you hedge your bets with. And that's going to depend on the skillset each trade brings to the job as well as the complexity of each job.

I'm very thankful that there was maple hardwood throughout our kitchen. We dramatically changed the footprint of the cabinets in our kitchen and we were able to keep the same floor.

Our house is 100 years old and I assume the floor is also. Some piecing is visible in the floors where walls have been moved but the kitchen floor itself looks pretty good. There is some discoloration in places where old cabinets have come and gone over the years. I love trying to put the history of the house together by looking at the floor.

I'm glad this question came up. I haven't even selected the flooring I will use but it seems like there are a lot of considerations. In my experience, there will eventually be a water (or milk!) spill in the kitchen so I think one should consider what happens if water ever runs under the cabinets. Also, the response above regarding the possibility of a future remodel. Someone did a different color tile around the perimiter of my kitchen so there was no way I could leave the flooring. I also like the concept of having the floor put down before the cabinets in order to speed up the flooring contractor (or my own work if I do it). Another point is how difficult it would be to remove your flooring, if you should ever wish to, if it were layed under your cabinets. eeek! Which is best??

I think the time savings is rather negligable, and if you're doing it for your lender, understand that the floor not being finished is also going to delay closing, so what are you saving? If you install now your flooring people will likely damage the cabinets at install, especially if you want to let the cabs overlap the flooring a bit (and to not to that is cheesy and very obvious). So the cabs can't be leveled correctly (because you leave a gap in front, nor can they be trimmed out because the flooring is missing....so they'll have to all be adjusted or fitted after the floor anyhoo....you see where this is going? Have them hang the uppers at this point, trim them all out and finish them, and then install the lowers after the floor is in and covering the entire floor. It makes so much better sense.

Our GC laid the cork right up to our cabinets, which don't have a toe-kick area. They're finished straight down, furniture-style. It's unusual but works for us. The cork was spendy, so having it go to the cabinet bases was fine with us!!

We did not put our flooring under our cabinets because we thought if we ever had to change out the floor (for whatever reason) we would have to remove all the base cabinets.

We did not put hardwoods under all of the cabinets except mabey under our frige...not sure though. It actually cost us 200.00 more for them to do this because of all the cutting. I believe plywood is under the cabinets.