Installing Vinyl Flooring Around Cabinets

Install plywood in remaining area to exact height of tile floor to finish cabinet install.

Installing vinyl flooring around cabinets.

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. Those are all good reasons to lay a kitchen floor after the cabinets are in. But if you have to install the flooring first here s a method that will avoid some of the problems i just described. And the newer vinyl planks are having issues with this reduced expansion gap.

In your first question on your original post you asked if you install the allure vinyl tile flooring underneath or around the cabinets. It may be tempting to just work around your stove or refrigerator since the floor under these never sees the light of day anyway but doing so can cause problems down the road when you cannot move the appliance over the hardwood lip install an appliance with different dimensions. When installing cabinets first you need to tell your cabinet makers counter top installers of the clearance needed for the dishwasher with the extra added height of the floor. Since your floor will be floating on the subfloor and connected solely by the locking system it needs space to expand and contract with temperature changes.

The short answer is always install around. For installations that go over existing flooring in kitchens where cabinets are already installed i leave a 1 4 gap for expansion and trim out around the cabinets with matching quarter round from the flooring supplier. Typically cabinets come before flooring. Put all the base cabinets in place then mark a line on the subfloor corresponding to the front edge of the toekick.

Install tile under cabinets and floor based appliances with a 2 inset this allows you to move the pattern and grout lines where needed. If you are installing click lock vinyl plank flooring you should not install under cabinets. Mark the layout of the cabinets and all floor based appliances. In most cases given standard flooring heights you will install the cabinets before the floor covering.