Video Transcript
It’s a glorious day at Cabinet Joint. I’m Justin, and in today’s video I’m going to be talking you through all the information that you need to know about flooring when it comes to planning out your cabinets. There are two main types of flooring: a fixed floor as well as a floating floor. First, we’re going to talk about the floating floor.
Your floating floor includes floors like LVP, LVT, vinyl. The reason that they call it floating is because it expands and contracts a considerable amount with the seasons, with the humidity, and things of that nature. So, with our cabinets, we need to make sure that we follow, one, the manufacturer’s guidelines, and two, good, healthy precautions to make sure that in no way in the future will setting cabinets in your kitchen or wherever else in your house potentially damage the floor later on.
So, with a floating floor, you’ll once again have to check out your manufacturer’s guidelines, but every time I’ve seen a floating floor, it says do not place cabinets on top. The reason being, the more weight that you have on it, the less that it can move. So, that comes and runs into some issues then when you want your cabinets like this to have a flush toe and you want a seamless look. You want it to look like it’s resting right on top of the cabinets. It’s harder to accomplish that, but you still can.
The biggest thing is when you’re setting your cabinets, we want to emphasize this: you are not setting your cabinets on top of the floating floor, but you are raising your cabinet up to where you can slide the floating floor underneath it. So, ideally, you would want your cabinets to be installed before installing your flooring with floating floors specifically. If you’re not able to, you can—it’s fine. You can just cut it. And with a normal cabinet that has a toe kick, give yourself the spacing of whatever your manufacturer says. Let’s say ½". Give yourself ½" from the cabinet, and then when you apply your toe kick, it’ll cover it and it’ll look great, and you’ll never even know that the flooring isn’t underneath your cabinet.
But with a flush toe like this, we had to raise it up, and then we raised it up an extra ¹⁄₁₆". That way, as we installed the floor, it can then go in and slide underneath, and now it has an amazing, clean, slick look. So, that’s the biggest thing to know with floating floors: you don’t want to set your cabinets on top, but you can still have them hide underneath.
When it comes to fixed floors like hardwoods, like engineered hardwood floors, concrete, tile, those are easier and more simple. Those you can just put your cabinets directly on top of. And so, you don’t have to worry about waiting to install your flooring before cabinets. You can go ahead and install your entire house and then put your cabinets right on top.
When it comes to certain tiles and maybe you want some ornate stones in your kitchen or your bathroom, just think about the fact that if you’d want, say, a flush toe, by nature, those stones or tiles can be a little rougher here and there, and that’s the design. You want it to look a little rustic. So, when you have a flush toe, it might be hard to get a nice, clean fit along the bottom. There might be some gaps. And if you’re cool with that, great. If not, you’re going to have to do some scribing to get a tight fit.
When it comes to concrete floors, it’s important to make sure your cabinets aren’t sitting directly on the floor because, believe it or not, concrete has moisture inside of it, and that moisture can be siphoned up through your cabinets and through the wood. So, make sure it’s spaced up at least ⅛", I would say, or you have some sort of membrane underneath it. That way, that moisture is not going to pop up through.
But other than that, there isn’t much you need to worry about when thinking about having fixed floors in your house. They’re both great options. Personally, I have LVP in my house, and it’s cost-effective as well as durable. But there is something special still about that classic hardwood or tile. And so, the option is yours. They’re both great options, but just make sure you plan accordingly as you are buying your cabinets.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to your cabinet coach, or you can call us at 888-211-6482. Thank you for watching. Have a great day.
