[CoolCollegekid23]

Hello everyone,

I am in the process of remodeling a 1970's rancher and am planning on replacing all the flooring in the Living, Dining, and Kitchen with Pergo Hand Scraped Hickory Flooring from Lowe's. I have read several different opinions on whether to install the flooring or cabinets first.

Since Ikea cabinets have a detachable toe kick, would it work to install the flooring right under the cabinets and then attach the toe-kick to cover up the edges. The size of the room I am doing requires a 1/4 space around all walls and hard edges. If I install the toe kicks first, it would require me to use some sort of quarter round after the floors are installed. As well, I am using cover panels to create an area for the fridge and cutting down 80" panels to use on the ends of base cabinets to avoid having to wrap toe kick. should these be installed before or after the floors?

Any thoughts?

--Aaron

[Tigratrus]

You can really do it either way. The toekicks can be easily removed and put back on so you could do the cabinets and toeckick first, then later take the toekicks off and do the flooring, then just rip the toeckick to a sightly narrower dimension and put them back on, no quarter round required.

James

[GardenOfDarwin]

Welcome to the forums, Aaron!

Is yours a floating floor? If so, I would install the cabinets before the floors, and both the toekicks and the cover panels after the floors. We installed cork flooring, which also required a 1/4" gap and we just cut it right in front of the base of the feet, and then attached the toekicks -- we haven't had any problems. We also had a side cover panel for the dishwasher, and you can see how we treated that in this thread

Hope that helps!

Susan

[CoolCollegekid23]

Hey Susan,

Great looking detail on the cover panel and dishwasher. I think I am going to try installing the cabinets, the floor, then the toe kicks and cover panels. It should keep my edges from having to be perfect as they will be neatly hidden under the cabinet edge. I am assembling cabinets this weekend so wish me luck.

I am hoping to post some pictures soon.

Thanks again,

Aaron

[Liz H]

Do you have an undercounter dishwasher? If it sits on your present floor, and you put the new (presumably higher) floor in front of it, you can have a problem removing the dishwasher in the future. I think you need to be certain that the floor under the cabinets is as high as the floor that shows to prevent this problem. It doesn't have to be the good stuff you're using in the rest of the room, plywood will do, just so it's the right thickness.

[GardenOfDarwin]

Thanks Aaron!

Liz, you are on the mark as per usual. I always forget that...but you're right. Same goes for the refrigerator, but I think those mostly go on top of the flooring anyway. We didn't think about the height difference, so if we ever have to take the dishwasher out, we'll have to remove a couple of planks of cork -- hopefully we'll be able to reattach them since they're a click together floating floor. If not, that's what extras are for...

Susan

[stacylu]

Hi Aaron

We're doing the same thing you plan to do - we're done with the kitchen mostly but still have the floor and toekicks to put in. We've installed all coverpanels since none will reach the floor for us.

We put 1/4" plywood under all of our cabinets and dishwasher to prevent the "locked in" dishwasher. My mom has that and is terrified that someday it's going to need repair and she won't be able to access it. There's more pictures of our status in my progress blog but here's one that shows the ridge

[img]http://render2.snapfish.com/render2/is=Yup6aQQ%7C%3Dup6%3DzqH%3AxxqUD7qRUrKxzX7BHpUUKxgXPPl%3F87KR6xqpxQQQexeQexJPJxv8uOc5xQQQoeP0lGnl0JqpfVtB%3F*KUp7BHSHqqy7XH6gXPPl%7CRup6lQQ%7C/of=50,590,442[/img]

Otherwise -welcome and best of luck in your remodel!
Stacy

[DesignDiva]

If you have the option, I'd vote for putting the flooring on the entire floor, then installing everything afterwards. This way, you have the option of using exposed legs if you like, if you get a prostyle range you will be able to edxpose the feet, and you won't have issues with the DW and the fridge. Plus, if you ever decide to rearrange or move things, you won't have to patch your flooring.

[TribalDancer]

I am with Eva. I would rather floor the entire space, and have options to move or arrange or change things later. By leaving gaps, you limit yourself or the people who may own your home after you.

The only exception I can think to this is IF you have a VERY expensive flooring and a few square feet saved would be a worthy tradeoff.