The flooring does not have to go down first but the finished floor and the floor under the cabinets should be the same height. I believe they were referring to not being able to pull the dishwasher OUT for repair or replacement if the legs of the dishwasher were below the level of the finished floor.

I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with 30 inch deep cabinets except that the storage to the very back is less accessible. The 30" depth countertop is great if you want to store things in the backsplash area on the countertop.

Perhaps they are trying to make you consider the implications of making your counters extra deep, not talk you out of it.

52" of clear walking space (cabinets only on one side, no barstools?) seems fine to me. If you have cabinets on both sides, or FE drawers, then 52" might be tight (for 30" drawer pulled all the way out - you could stand to side but it will block anyone walking past).

I suggest cabinets first, then flooring, then appliances so DW, fridge and range (if freestanding) will have finished floor under them. Check how much up/down appliances can be adjusted so you can allow enough space under counter/cabinets to fit DW and fridge. You may have to block the cabinets up, but it is usually done to make sure they are level anyway in case the floor isn't, and to make sure the countertop is at the height above the *finished* floor that you want it (usually 36" but it's your house, you decide what height you want, esp. if going custom cabinets you have lots of flexibility). Then install finished flooring - this way you don't waste $$ on finished floor covered by cabinets. Plus it's a lot easier to install and level cabinets set on subfloor instead of finished floor - esp. tile!

This is the way we have remodeled 1 bath and built a new house. Remodeled bath we used stock 31.5" high vanity with 1.5" laminate top but blocked it up 1.5" to allow for tile floor (no backerboard) b/c I don't like bending over to brush my teeth. Ran baseboard around the bottom & side to hide the 2x4.

In the new house we blocked the kids' vanity up 1" to allow for 1/4" Hardibacker and tile, but master vanity was blocked up 2" (and will have baseboard or shoe applied to hide any gap). Kitchen cabinets were blocked up only 3/4" for Hardibacker and tile, with radiant heat (toekick pretty much covers the blocking except at corners, so I'll probably just caulk and apply shoe, no baseboard under toekick). I'm short and pretty much wanted my vanity and kitchen countertops to be the same height, except for the baking center in the island. That's blocked up 3/4" so toekick matches end cabinets, but I used a bathroom vanity so it started 3" lower, laid the laminate flush rather than built up to keep it low - only did dropped front edge same 1.5" thickness as upper counter for looks.

Is this a walk through galley or a dead-end galley?

Oldalgebra,

Perhaps I am skeptical. I am so glad my floors went in first in my home. Here it is many years later and we are
doing a kitchen reno, changing base cabs. Lucky for me the entire floor is wood under the old cabs.
This would never have been the case if the floors went in after.

There is a little clue about manipulation. If you feel angry after a conversation, you do not feel understood or that you have not received a full explanation (Your 6th sense says red flag) then you might be dealing with a manipulator. Anytime anyone I hire tries to convince me to do something that doesn't feel right I put my foot down in a polite but firm way. We can disagree but I am paying the bill so we had better come to a comfortable choice for me.

It is YOUR house and you are more than allowed to do whatever you wish with your money and your ideas. Don't let anyone sway you. Of course they are going to give you their opinions, ideas and suggestions that is what you are paying them for. But the final choice is yours. If you want 30 inch cabs and you know the good and bad, it is still up to you. If you are not sure research because having knowledge helps you make the best choice and more importantly you will be better aware if you are indeed being taken advantage of.

Best of luck.

~Boxerpups

I'm not sure that this addresses your issue but here is my experience. We have one run of cabinets where the countertop is 30' deep. This was done so we could have a regular depth refrigerator that came out to counter depth. The base cabinets on this run are really only 24" deep inside but are pulled out from the wall 6" to match the depth of the refrigerator. The wall cabinets above are also pulled out 6" so we don't have a farther reach than we would for regular depth base cabinets. We have appliance garages underneath the wall cabinets and these are the full depth of the wall cabinets plus the 6" pull out. In other words there is no false wall behind the appliance garages as there is behind the wall or the base cabinets. Hope this makes sense.

Palimpsest,
It's a dead end kitchen.

Thanks, Boxerpups. I felt myself getting a little stronger and a little more stronger and a little more stronger as I read through your post.

Oldalgebra (interesting name!), hang in there with your decisions -- it IS your kitchen, after all. It's always good to get feedback from contractors, etc. because they look at things differently than cooks do. That doesn't mean they are right, however. I have a U-shaped kitchen and one of the very best decisions was to have 30 inch deep lower cabinets on 2 sides of the U. Love it! My cabinets go all the way to the walls and have full-extension glides; every single inch of the cabinets and drawers is accessible. You will be amazed to see what a difference in storage those measly 6 inches make. That said, you can have one side 30 inches deep and the other 24 if you think you would miss that in floor space. I got out the big boxes and blue tape and taped out the floor plan to decide if it would work for me. I'll put a link to an album of our kitchen photos; there are several that show drawers with all their contents.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our kitchen

Oldalgebra,

It's all you. If you want kitchen uppers that are green, shaped like a booger and are coated with candy that's your thing. Now, I might try to disuade you from that. But as long as I presented all the options then you need what you want.

As far as walkways mine are only 42. AND it's because that's how I wanted them. Pfft. I didn't run out of space, I LIKE the narrower walkways.

I've done several kitchens that have one or more sets of 30" counters and then cabinets are "weird". The cabinets are 15" deep AND come down at least several inches more than normal (that brings the storage back into easy reach). There's usually one more shelf than usual and the uppermost shelf has pullouts for rarely used stuff.

There are tons of links around on that subject but at least one seemed immediately useful so I've placed that below. It's not a particularly "classy" set up but you can see they work well.

There are all sorts of reasons both to AND not to do these kinds of things. Make sure you are getting all the informaion and then make sure you get what you want.

Here is a link that might be useful: Deeper than normal cabinets.

I think if its a dead end kitchen, that is plenty of space in between, people will not be walking "through".

To me the walk-throughs and counters are less important than the emotions you experience when dealing with these pepople. My advice is to walk away now, before things get too involved.

Renovating anything is a very stressful process. The last thing you need is people who ARE WORKING FOR YOU constantly second-guessing or you or behaving in a condescending manner. They may have done it more often than you, so their level of knowledge regarding technical things is (hopefully) greater than yours.

They have very little understanding though, of how you live, what you like and what your goals are. Redoing the heart of your home is about far more than pretty cabinets, and it can be a very emotional process. If they don't want to understand this, and work according to your guidelines and direction, there are many others out there that do.

Tell them that the whole "attitude" thing is so 90's that you are worried that their design work would be similarly dated...

I think that many KDs and contractors are simply used to working with people who haven't done as much homework as the people here. Many seem to have set ways that they like to do things and when a client expresses a desire to do something our of their norm, they see it not as creative or appropriate to the client's needs, but as different and, therefore, wrong. It took my GC and cabinet maker some time to get used to me, as I was more confident that I knew exactly what I wanted than the clients they were used to. They would sometimes pull that same "are you sure that's what you want?" with me, but it was out of genuine concern and it was never in a way that I thought was rude or condescending. The KD who had behaved that way was shown the door. Get what you want, not what someone else thinks you should have. If you feel like you are being manipulated, you probably are.

a 52 inch aisle is deemed by all to be a great big aisle, a working aisle. And not too tight for a passage aisle either in a walkthrough galley. Plenty of space. I have a 48 inch wide galley walkthrough.

oldalgebra are you doing drawers in your 30-inch base cabinets? Looking on the Blum site I saw that they had only one size longer than 21"; it was about 27". So if it's to be Blum's Tandembox drawer sliders, you could have 28" base cabinets to hold them. I think. I know that Ikeafans people in the mods forum have cut down Ikea base cabinets to about 21" deep withotu preventing the sliders from going all the way back to bottom out -- I don't know why there are those unused extra inches at the back. Perhaps in Europe people need space to run their plumbing behind the drawer backs... In any case, in a small galley kitchen this is All Good To Know when you are planning those extra inches for your knees in the aisle. In my kitchen I could have one bank of bases at only 21" deep while the counter on top of it could be 24", and this would make more space ergonomically without reducing the counter surface.

oldalgebra are doing a deep base on both sides or on one side?

According to Blum's website, they make Tandem (can get with Blumotion) in 9" -30" lengths, in 3" increments - just have to get "heavy duty" 568 series for anything over 21". They say 30" cabinet will use 27" drawer and 27" glides, but again, based on my experience with 21" vanity and 18" drawer, you may need to pad the back of the mounting bracket. The 457 series (18" drawer) said it would fit in up to 20 9/16" cabinet depth, my 21" cabinet was 20.5" but still had to pad the bracket 1/2" b/c glides were too short. So check the literature - it says you also have to block the sides for deep cabinets. Mounting also depends on face frame vs inset, etc. Make sure your cabinetmaker knows how to make the drawer boxes and mount these!

Here is a link that might be useful: Blum Tandem brochure

On your 30" base cabinets -- Do you want 30" deep cabinets? Or merely 30" deep countertops?

I ask because increasing the depth of the cabinet boxes can increase the cost of building them rather substantially. (A 4'x8' sheet of plywood can make two 24" deep runs with zero waste. Increasing to 30" means there wil probably be waste and the builder will need to think more!) Also, the extra 3" of depth will be at the very back -- so your least-useful space. (Though with full-extension drawer glides, it could still be plenty useful.)

52" aisles are generous by any measure. Even when your DW or oven door is open, you still have enough room to walk around -- and I doubt you leave them fully open for more than a few minutes of low-traffic time.

Putting the floors in last may be their way of trying to assure they're not damaged. But like others, I also prefer to have the flooring extend fully under any cabinets that could conceivably ever be moved (islands) and under all appliances.

I am doing deep bases on both sides. On one side, our couch sits against the pony wall (I think that's what it's called) and I think the extra depth will help prevent any splashing from the sink splatter on the heads of those sitting on the couch. On the other side, I am hoping for deep cabinets to help give a regular depth refrigerator a more built in look.

I do want Blum full extension and soft close. That's a must for me. And I do want to take advantage of the extra depth with drawers that use up all the space. I have a very small kitchen and every inch is important.

I am not opposed to a 28 inch depth base on either side. I am a little concerned that it won't be enough to give the refrigerator the flush look I am hoping for, but maybe we can pick up a few inches by recessing it.

Thanks, everyone, for your encouragement.

oldalgebra, you don't have to have a 30" base under a 30" counter - you can just pull the regular depth cabinets out from the wall; it all gets hidden by the side panels and/or wall, anyways.
I did that; we pulled out the cabinets to exactly the depth we needed to make the fridge flush, then just templated the counter all the way back to the wall and covered it with a deeper side panel. I think those counters are some weird depth like 30.8". And nobody will ever know about the empty hidden inches in back of the cabs. :-)

Oldalgebra,

You didn't mention what material the floor was going to be. I only ask because I understand that a floating floor (either engineered hardwood or laminate) shouldn't go under the cabinets. There is also the issue of cost -- if it's a pricey hardwood, then maybe you want to conserve costs by limiting the square footage.

But generally, folks don't want to have the floors in because they can be easily damaged by cabinet installers, etc. Still, a coupla sheets of masonite taped down over the finished floors, and you'll be fine. Just more work for them.

Good luck, stick to your guns, and if you're getting a bad feeling now, ditch 'em. It's too early in the game for the manipulation and disdain.

If the floor is last to install, you save money and headache. You just need to remember to place scrap tile or backer to raise the level under the DW. But putting the floor down everywhere is good too, and is especially good for DIY since they don't bill themselves for their time, and they are willing to blame themselves when they scratch the floor later. Knowing who to blame is a big advantage.
:- )

I think the current walkway in my dead end galley is 43". Often there are 2 of us cooking in there, or one at the range and one at the sink (which are opposite each other) and it's never a problem. If there were a third person trying to walk through then it would be much more of a problem.
There is certainly not enough space to walk past the open dishwasher but we're ok with it.
Good luck.

We have 39" from center of our island (recessed) to opposite side and it's not enough with 18" drawer pulled out, DH complains it's tight for 2 people even with no drawers pulled out. But someone can go around the island if they have to (54" minus barstools). With a dead-end galley kitchen you're stuck.

Put finished flooring, not scraps under the DW and fridge. Of course they don't have to be the best pieces. You don't want to see edge of plywood under DW, or when you pull fridge out to clean - or get it caught on lip. It's only about another 10 sf - just can't see it under cabinets since even with wood you'd have to refinish if you moved cabinets. Just save extra in case, even if you save enough to pull out all the cabinets and finish floor, you'll be saving labor at this point. But really, you wouldn't move the cabinets (and plumbing, range) all to other side of room in the future, right? So can't see having all the floor done.