Floating Hardwood Floor Under Kitchen Cabinets

Hardwood flooring can last for decades if not centuries with the right upkeep.

Floating hardwood floor under kitchen cabinets. A floating wood. Floating hardwood floor overview illustration by gregory nemec. I have installed dozens of floating floors and cabinets. To start you ll need to expose as much of the kitchen floor as possible by moving the appliances to another room.

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. Unless there are severe changes in the relative humidity the floor will not move very much and kitchen cabinets can be installed directly on the flooring. It would be a shame for you or the future owner to want to change the kitchen footprint and need to replace all of the flooring in the areas where you did not install it. Since a floating floor is usually installed over a thin foam pad there is a bit of give to the floor.

Engineered flooring goes down over a thin foam sheet which provides cushioning and sound dampening. First we must consider how your hardwood flooring will be installed. It seems like it would be easier to lay the flooring first and not have to cut it to fit against the toekick or to cover up the gap with shoe moldings thomas bourquin spring valley ohio. How to install floating flooring in kitchens.

Install the cabinets first because heavy cabinetry cannot sit on top of a floating floor or it will restrict movement and increase the chances of flooring separation. You need to leave a 5 16 inch gap between the flooring and the baseboard or wall around the. Laminate flooring is a floating floor so we do not recommend installing kitchen cabinets on top of laminate as they could pin the floor down and prevent it from expanding and contracting with temperature changes leading to buckling and separation at the joints. Floating nail down or glue down.

Go ahead and install your kitchen cabinets directly on the cement subfloor. 2 hold the saw at a 45 degree angle with respect to the cabinet and insert the blade. Floating floors come in a variety of materials such as engineered hardwood or cork but not all are suitable for a kitchen floor installation. One trick i use is to install nylon chair glides on the underside of the base cabinets.

The planks glue together to create a floor that floats moves freely as a unit. Most toe kick saws cut to a maximum depth of 3 4 inches which is just enough for solid hardwood flooring. I would recommend setting all the base cabs unattached just clamped together then draw a line on the floor around them and remove the flooring. If installing a floating floor the answer is simple.