This post is now also on the Kitchens forum since I need as many responses to my questions as I can get quickly. I added some other info such as floor flex measurement. That post is titled: concern about uneven kitchen subfloor. See the link below. I will respond to comments on both forums but would prefer everyone head to the Kitchens forum. Here is a link that might be useful: concern about uneven kitchen subfloor - please help

Well...do you want to risk damage to your flooring?...or damage to your cabinets? A careful installer is not going to wreck your cabinets. However, if you have no say at all in who the builder hires for the floor work, then you might have some worries in that department. I think either way is fine, but doing the floor first does open the floor to damage from all those 'trades' that will be marching through your kitchen...you know, plumbers, drywall installers, trim carpenters, countertop installers,...and, of course, electricians. Don't forget the appliance delivery people! What a disaster they can cause! If you don't take steps to protect your new floor from compression damage...from moving heavy appliances across your new floor or even pushing it into place...how many times have I seen this type of damage to new floors!

As for the problems that can happen without tile, a good friend had a slow leak in the DW line that went undetected for some time, got beneath the adjacent cabinets, swelled and warped the plywood, and made a home for some nasty mold. The cabinets had to be ripped out to fix the problem, and she ended up installing tile then anyway. My brother and SIL had a similar issue and just had to remove the toekicks to be able to clean up the standing water and let the area dry out because they had tile under their cabinets. My knowledge of those experiences is what made the decision easy for me when we installed our travertine. We have mostly slab foundations here in Florida, so subflooring is not an issue for us. I was assuming the same for the OP, since travertine is more common in slab settings, but I certainly could be wrong about that. I also like the idea of not having to worry that the tile and plywood match up perfectly. Having all tile, I knew that there would be no issues with cabinet installation. Finally, removing tile to change the floor is apparently not that big of a deal. Just before we installed this floor, I was having a minor panic attack that I had chosen the wrong tile. All my poor friends--the same ones who had to listen to all my other TKO ranting--had to hear about my uncertainty. One friend finally put me at ease by describing how easily they had just removed the tiles in their own house to replace them. She said that chiseling along the cabinet line was no more difficult than the scoring they had done to lay the tile in the first place. I don't even know if it would be nearly as easy with stone (hers was porcelain tile), but it eased my mind enough to go ahead with the installation, knowing that I could rip it out and replace it later if I decided it was, indeed, wrong for my kitchen. Fortunately, I ended up liking it fine. Unless your travertine is unusually expensive and you have an extraordinarily large kitchen, it seems worth it to get the stone laid under the cabinets. Even if you need to get help and only install it there until your husband can finish the rest of the floor, it would make sense to me.

hi @Joey - please see photos below. They are not very good photo--due to my bad phone camera and lack of light AND because we're still in the midst of renovations. I will post more in 3 weeks when the kitchen is closer to done. hi @TeeCee84 -- First of all, after spending all this time managing the renovation of my 93-year-old Mom's house myself, as a complete newbie, I can tell you, objectively, this issue is super confusing, but when you understand it, it's simple. I'm finding this same phenomenon with many--if not most--products in our renovation, like cabinetry. Manufacturers are located god knows where--I would say probably often China, but I'd be making that up. However, this part is true: the product gets bought by a range of companies one degree of separation from the manufacturer. From there, some those companies rename the product depending on where they are selling it--or even which big box stores they get a contract to sell to. Other companies at that level sell to other wholesalers who then also may rename it. I found out after my inquiry here, and way after we purchased this flooring from a high-end flooring store (which was, in turn, 2 degrees of separation from the big company that contracted to sell/distribute the product from the actual manufacturer), AND after I was finally able to reach one of the main wholesaler's customer service agents, who was kind and helped me untangle some of this, among other things, that HOME DEPOT actually carries this product. I was there buying a vanity and happened to walk by a display of OUR expensive boutique-y flooring. And yes, the very same exact product. Totally different name of the product. The flooring company name was totally different. It broke my heart a bit, because Home Depot was much less expensive than the local Mom and Pop store from which he purchased it and which also installed it--and did only a B+ or A- job of installing it, for a lot of money. Not an A+ job but A+ pricepoint. NOTE: this flooring is easy to install (I discovered because I hired a rather talented handyman in town, but not a flooring expert or carpenter, to lay similar flooring in my office, and he bashed it out beautifully in a few hours, for 1/2 the price of the Mom and Pop shop), so even for a 1200' space you probably don't need the very highest-end flooring pro, but if you can swing it, a high-end expert will have greater accountability than a no-name handyman (or an installer through a big box store--which everyone, even sales people at big box stores, will tell you to avoid). So, the long story is that. It is likely the exact flooring you want--Churchill--is ubiquitous throughout the United States and Europe, but goes by different aliases. Again: that is because all these various retailers and Mom and Pop shops and contractors can give you a price, and you cannot easily comparison shop. Furthermore, sometimes these companies simply let one name fade away--but the same company re-names the floor so it may appear to be a new offering. I just checked and see the floor we got now goes by even more names! Additionally--which I don't imagine is by design--you can't easily find reviews and look at customer photos since they all go different names. Meaning, the companies who claim the floors as their own are different and have different names. One big global company may call this exact same flooring 10-12 different names. In Northern California it's one thing, in SoCal, NV, and AZ another, in TX another, in Florida another, upper midwest and Chicago another, etc. All the same "company" -- and this isn't even counting any other companies that carry it. I remember one unhappy woman who posted here--an interior designer--saying I was making a mountain out of a molehill and when someone here nicely asked how everything went and I let them know very well, she piped in, basically "Toldja so, maybe next time stop unnecessarily fretting." That's why I am taking the time to break it down for anyone unfamiliar with the "reno game" or whatever it is. It is anything but intuitive, but as they say: IYKYK...If You Know, You Know. And now we know. Incidentally, same with our cabinets....4 different names of what one would think are the manufacturers, but they're branded differently and it's hard to find out who actually makes them all. And--more to the point--almost impossible to comparison shop. With that said I unreservedly recommend these floors--whatever name they are going by. When I interview carpenters and workmen for our other work they all remark on how nice and high-quality these floor are. Every single day my mother and I loved them. They are dreamy and distinguished without being uptight. * * * PHOTOS Been waiting to post photos until renovation is complete---it's been taking forever---cabinets FINALLY arriving this Thursday, after 8 months. I wanted to share photos here when everything was finished and looking great. So--these photos TRULY don't begin to show 1/2 how gorgeous these floors are. They're incredibly beautiful, elegant, understated but create a lovely lovely effect. They look more "rustic" and textured in these photos than in reality. In reality, they are light and smooth with just the most understated hint at texture. The knots in these photos are prominent but in reality, the knots are grey, not black or dark. I would say the photos of the product are VERY accurate, so maybe that is also so with "Churchill" or its equivalent. [EDIT: I took a screenshot of a photo on a website of Churchill--not of the flooring but of a kitchen with the flooring showing an island--did a Google search of that image and, yes, the flooring appears to exist under different name and companies--good luck!] If our flooring is at all representative, the overall effect is subtle and gracious. I will post better photos in 1 month when the kitchen is presentable with the correct cabs and counters--repainted with all new furniture.