Does that question make sense? In other words, here’s what I want to do - I’d really like to make my own cabinets. (Assuming, of course, that I don’t do as I usually do and buy all the stuff and make half a cabinet and everything else sits in the garage for a generation.) My kitchen floor is currently vinyl. I think I’d like to install period-correct (and environmentally friendly) linoleum. I know I want soapstone countertops. I do not need to replace any appliances, although I would like a nicer sink and a more macho garbage disposal.
So: do I need to replace the floor before I replace the cabinets? Should the cabinets have bare wood under them? (Some of my new cabinets would be going in where no cabinet had gone before.) I know it can be a problem to install tile and then have to switch out dishwashers or something, but I don’t think I’ll be going with tile.
We remodeled our kitchen last summer, so it’s still fresh in my mind. We replaced all the cabinets, including adding ones where no cabinets had existed. New countertop, new floor, new sink, new oven. Kept the refigerator and dishwasher, but moved them to new locations. Here’s the order our contractor used:
Demolition of everything (old cabinets, old linoleum floor)
New plumbing and electrical. (We had to move the gas line to the new oven location).
Drywall.
New cabinets installed on the bare wood subfloor.
New countertops. (They need to measure the cabinets as installed before they can fabricate the countertop.
Hook up sink, disposal.
New flooring. Again, need to measure the cabinets footprint before measuring to see how much flooring material is needed. Also, cabinets and countertops are heavy and can bang up the floor. No big deal if it’s just plywood that’s going to be covered up anyway.
Paint.
Install oven on top of flooring.
Measuring for 5 & 7 can happen simultaneously after step 4, but the floor installers stated they wanted to come in after the countertop was done.
IME, the correct order is (1) sell house, (2) move into new house with ideal kitchen, (3) let new owner deal with old kitchen.
Seriously, if it’s technically possible to install the cabinets over the linoleum, do that. As long as the subfloor is in good shape, it shouldn’t be a problem since the linoleum isn’t going to compress much, if at all. If you want to move a cabinet later, you won’t have to backfill over bare wood (there may be marks on the linoleum where the old cabinet was).
I’d like to move a couple of cabinets in my kitchen, but I’m hampered by the fact that we didn’t lay down flooring over the whole space. Now, if I move the cabinets, I’ll have to fill in the holes left be the migrating cabinet bases, which will be a pain in the butt since we used laminate flooring.
Flooring can be installed before or after cabinets.
If flooring is installed first, one can just spread out a great big sheet, cut around doorways, and along edges, and plop all your cabinets down on top. Sometimes when people do this, they let the cabinets hold the flooring in place (rather than using glue or nails or something).
If you put the cabinets in first, then the flooring has to be installed around each cabinet. This is harder (more labor intensive) than the install the flooring then plop down the cabinet method.
Build your new cabinet to surround the kitchen sink to suit the new sink of your dreams. Well, the sink of your dreams that fits your budget, anyhow.
I know of no reason why it matters whether your cabinet sits on top of linoleum rather than subflooring. This doesn’t mean that no reason exists, just that I am not an expert on kitchen remodeling. I’d worry more about whether all the present cabinet space will still be cabinet space after the remodel.
Is there a reason it wouldn’t be, except for cabinets I never get around to making or poor cabinet space planning?
I’m working up some sketches, actually, of what I want to do, and I was hoping the Dope could give me feedback. It’s a small kitchen and needs all the smarts it can get!
I’d design/build or buy the cabinets first, mark their footprint, then remove to install the flooring as noted above. Protect the newly installed flooring with a layer or two of rosin paper, or sheets of hardboard while installing cabinets and appliances.
There I fixed your list.
In my case they came and measured for the counters as soon as I had the drywall done. There was no need to wait for the cabinets since my my cabinets ran wall to wall on two side of the kitchen, and there are two single free standing cabinets on the other side.
In my case I did a new subfloor under the entire kitchen, but installed the finished floor in after the cabinets (Pergo) Putting the finished floor in later makes it much easier if you ever want to change flooring (Like I am thinking about)
One other suggestion. As you are installing the new base cabinets, liberally dust the floor with boric acid. This will prevent roaches.
PM me if you want some planning help, I have been in the kitchen business for 18 years as a designer and project manager.
A couple thoughts; Look into honed granite, it will be FAR FAR more durable than soapstone. I know, I had a combination of soapstone and butcher block in my old house in Evanston. The honed granite will give you the look you are seeking, plus durability and stain resistance.
Putting the floor around the cabinets is ok as long as it is lino but for anything higher you want to run it under the cabinets or build up the cabinets to the new level. The worst case scenario is you put in wood floors after the cabinets and appliances are in and you cannot remove the dishwasher without pulling the tops off ( trust me you dont want to do this, the last big kitchen I had to remove and reinstall cost the insurance co. $6400).
Good luck, one of the things I love best about my job is that I know for certain that the time and expense my customers are putting into their kitchens and bathrooms will absolutely improve the value of their homes.
Spend money on a good faucet, you use it more than any other thing in the kitchen so you want quality. I had a Grohe for 15 years and am about to replace the crap faucet in my rental with a Grohe Ladylux (getting for free, woo!) and I almost cannot wait.
I finished rebuilding my kitchen (actually my entire house-Katrina), last year. Others have provided lots of good suggestions. My only contributions are: 1) install cabinets over the floor (put the flooring under the cabinets) since it makes everything else easier and protects the cabinets. Spills, even from mopping the floor, tend to run downhill. You don’t want your cabinets sitting in the wet. 2) after you take out your old cabinets, have your walls checked to make sure they are flat. While a normal variation in walls isn’t a problem-they trim the cabinets to cover the gaps, it is possible to have a large “wave” in your walls that will be hard to see before you put a straightedge or a straight run of cabinets up to the wall. Sometimes one needs quite a trim to make it look good. While you have the old cabinets out is the perfect time to fix the problem.
For those that don’t know, all sheetrock walls “wave” to some extent. sheetrock bends and the rough carpenters don’t tend to line up all the studs just so. When the rock is nailed (or far better screwed) to the studs, it conforms to the minor variations in the studs. The eye can’t see the curves-they are too gentle-especially after the texture is put on the wall. It only becomes apparent when a long straight object butts up to the wall.
While I put the cabinets in before the floor, I ran the flooring into the areas where the fridge, stove and dishwasher live. Makes it damn easy to remove them.
Seemed like the smart thing to do at the time.
I can assure you, my walls are not flat. They are 78 years old, three of them are plaster and one of them is ten year old sheetrock. I have an aquarium in the dining room and the water level is two inches deeper on the left side. I do not believe there is a single straight line in the whole place.
ETA - the thing with the cabinets and the floor is, I’m going to end up doing this in stages. I want to do the over-refrigerator cabinet as proof-of-concept, and then move a free-standing cabinet over and put in a pantry cabinet next to the fridge. Then of course I’ll have to replace the upper and lower cabinets on the sink-wall all at once. So there probably won’t be a time when the kitchen is entirely cleaned out to install flooring from wall to wall, unless it’s super-important.
Honed and polished granite have the same resistance to staining. We use HG brand sealer; it’s oil based with silicone and it works very well. It’s kind ofa pain to apply but it dries completely invisible with no change in feel or anything. The thing about honed granite is that it lightens the look of the stone and is better suited to stones that have a slight patternto them.
Black Absolute looks cool honed but tends to show fingerprints. Virginia Mist or Costa Smerelda look great and hide pretty much anything you throw at them.
You can tell the general order by the way your original kitchen was installed.
Home builders are always doing things the most efficient way.
But sometimes they make mistakes due to things like one stove not fitting where the old one came out, because the cable is in a different corner and there’s not enough room for the power cord plug.
So, one major strategy is to cut the expensive countertop last.
If the sink or base counters are slightly hard to fit, or new appliances need an extra inch to open their doors, then the edges and openings of the countertop may shift an inch or two.
A good oil based sealer needs to be reapplied every 4-5 years. Water based ones like you get at the home centers need reapplication every six months or so.
I think concrete counters are cool, look up Fu Tung Cheng for some really good info. Basic points are : precast or cast in place/how experienced is the installer/ does the look go with your design.
I’ve made a few concrete tops and they can be tricky. Get someone who knows what they are doing and does a lot of them.