Which should be fitted first in a kitchen refit, floor tiles or cabinets?

[Villanousvillans]

I’m going to have my kitchen upgraded. Dumb question, which shall I have done first, the new floor tiles or the cabinets?

We've always laid the floor first so the whole room is done, as I was taught this is the best way. Have moved lots of times and always needed to install a new kitchen as we buy renovation projects (current kitchen was 60 years old). In our previous kitchens we've had slate, engineered wood, limestone, reclaimed floorboards and new quarry tiles, so no experience with vinyl flooring.

If flooring is going underneath cabinets, then definitely flooring first - our fitter found our floor was a lot more uneven than he originally thought once everything was out, so had to have some concrete levelled off that was coming up from foundations and everything reboarded, that would have been a real pain if cabinets were already in.

Floor last. (i) Why waste cash on flooring you will not see. (ii) If it goes down first, it might well get damaged when the cabinets go in.

@MrThorpeHazell Why waste cash on flooring you will not see

Because it’s a bigger expense down the road if you ever want to change the kitchen. That’s the problem my kids are now facing.

The person who originally put in their kitchen installed cabinets and then tiled up to and around them. That kitchen is well past use-by date but tiles are fine, and actually very nice. However, unless they use an identical kitchen layout for a replacement, which they won’t as really bad layout currently, it has caused a real headache.

If you were to just place the new kitchen cabinets/layout, then you have some of it on top of tiles, some of it where old cabinets were, and then areas on the floor bare with no tiles were cabinetry used to be. In short a nightmare, and all tiles now need to come up which is a shame as they were obviously good quality, great wearing and look really nice, even after probably 20 years. So, added expense to rip all tiling up and lay new tiles. If the tiling had if been wall to wall it would have been so much simpler and no caused all the added expense they now have.

Interesting, I did the floor wall to wall when we did our kitchen 15 years ago, now regretting it as I want to change the floor but not the kitchen units

We had this in our old kitchen. Instead of ripping up the old tiles they poured in a compound to bring it all up to the same level and then put lvt on the top. The compound dried overnight. Might be possible for your kids?

Seems like it’s whether the type of flooring can be compressed by the weight of cabinets, ovens, hobs and such?

Lvt seems to be put down last I’m guessing because over time it would compress a mm or two and cause problems where cabinets join?

also the kitchen fitters will have another job to go to next week so putting a floor down first wall to wall takes time and may need extra time to go off which cuts into their fitting time. If they put the floor down last they can put less down ( in between cabinets ) and tell you to stay off it for 12-24 hours.

I’m going to have tiles on the floor. The kitchen is an ideal layout and won’t be altered. The actual cabinets are pretty good, so I think I’m going for a makeover rather than a new kitchen.

Thank you, I will mention this to them as an option to look at as they did ask my opinion. It’s just a shame though to have to either rip up or cover the tiles as they are a really nice tile and obviously very good wearing. A really unique shade and they have not even been able to find anything even close, must have been some odd fashion shade 20 odd years ago, but does look nice, and also nicely different to most tiles these days if that makes sense. They are really resentful the person didn’t do it wall to wall not just for what would now be so much easier but because they are so nicely unique.

We had the floor tiled first then the cabinets put in. The cost of tiling the whole floor wasn’t much more than doing it after fitting cupboards as the tiler told us the time taken to retrofit the floor with all the extra cuts would cost as much as the extra tiles that wouldn’t need such precise cutting as no one would see the edges under the cupboards. I think we bought 2 extra packs of tiles.
I could never see a time whereby we’d want a new floor laid but keep the existing cupboard, or vice versa!

As others have said, it massively depends on the flooring type.

Tiles / Hardwood / Stone - do whatever you want

Laminate / LVT / Vinyl - units first, floor last, every time. Click laminate and LVT are ‘floating’ floors and need to be able to expand and contract during changes in temperature without the weight of the units/appliances on top of it. Units also settle over time and if on top of the laminate/LVT can cause the floor to buckle in places, even if it’s only a few mm. Doing the units first also allows for the possibility of anchoring island/peninsula units into the subfloor.

Also, a lot of people tend to want to replace flooring more often than unit carcasses.