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Remodeling Flooring Kitchens

Do i need to do the kitchen floors first in a remodel?

5 years ago

I had a contractor in a year ago whose bid for a first floor reno scared us from doing anything for a while to our 21 year old home. We've decided rather than tear out walls, we keep our current footprint, but instead replace with updated materials. But it is absolutely a domino effect.

We decided to start by replacing cabinets, countertops, and appliances. This would give us a fresh look and a bit more storage in a very small kitchen. Thinking we would wait a year or two to replace the floor because we want to take hardwoods throughout the first floor and replace the trim. Until....

Speaking with a kitchen showroom they almost insisted that we do floors first. We currently have ceramic tile. She said "i would never remove ceramic tile with new cabinets. They'll get ruined during the demo."

Thoughts? We would prefer to spread the expense over a couple of years but don't want to ruin brand new cabinets.

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Comments (4)

Aglitter
5 years ago
New flooring usually runs underneath a cabinet replacement project. This makes setting of appliances easier concerning measurement tolerances and keeps cabinetry above the substrate level so any leaks won't be as devastating. Does your tile run underneath the current cabinetry? If so, removing it will be easier once all the old cabinets are out. Flooring will seem inexpensive next to the cost of new cabinetry, so protecting the cabinetry investment in any way possible is a smart approach.
Lynn
5 years ago
I too struggled with your same situation. I was steered away from installing cabs first and then flooring by folks on here, and glad I've listened. My mother completed her cabs and such, and it will take some finagling with the next contractor to run new flooring that will look good up against the cabs. She will probably not have standard high cabinets once the flooring is installed as well. I say you should definitely get the new flooring down first, then the other items afterwards. Will more than likely save you a world of headache.
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Cloud Swift
5 years ago
It is possible to take up tile without replacing the cabinets, at least if the tile doesn't run under the cabinets. When we bought our house, we wanted to replace the tile floor in our kitchen but didn't want to do a full remodel. The tile was all taken up and engineered wood installed. It didn't hurt our cabinets. The tile hadn't been installed under the cabinets.

Around 20 years later, we remodeled the kitchen. We didn't want to replace the flooring at that point. The kitchen and family room are open to each other with the flooring covering the whole area. We had a long term plan to take out the large fireplace hearth in the family room which would uncover a bunch of floor so we wanted to wait until that to replace the floor.

It worked because the old kitchen footprint was very functional so we were only making small tweaks to that: enlarging the island depth a bit, slightly shifting the position and width of the refrigerator. A bit of the old flooring had to come up since the cabinets would all sit on the subfloor for the larger island and some material patched in to the larger fridge opening. The cabinets are standard height - the way our cabinets come, the boxes don't have the toe kick, it was constructed under the cabinets and the cabinet boxes sit on top of it so they just had to allow for the flooring height when making the toe kicks.

Adjusting the floor for the small footprint changes was probably easier with a wood floor than with tile, but it could be possible. We have had cracked tiles in our entry hall replaced with spare ones left over. Do you have any spare tiles?

We have since completed the family room update and replaced the kitchen and family room flooring with no issues.
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tk 4man
Original Author
5 years ago
Thanks for all the feedback. Tile does run under the cabinets and no we don’t have extra. Sounds like the decision has been made. If you give a mouse a cookie...
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