Tiling floor in kitchen, under cabinets or up to?

rizzla76

Hi
We are about to tile the floor in our kitchen, and different people are telling me different things about where to tile to. We were just going to tile before we put the cabinets in right up to the walls. But some people are saying put cabinets in first so as not to damage the tiles then tile up to the legs and the plinth will hide it? Any recommendations?

rockjim69

We have just had a new kitchen fitted and had the cabinets fitted 1st and then the floor tiles laid up to the cabinet legs. Once the plinths are in it looks like a perfect finish.

Also, since this site is all about money saving, you use less tiles this way! Just done a quick calc and for our kitchen we would have needed an extra 4sq meters of tiles to do under the cabinets!

mjr600

Put your cabinets/plumbing in first if it's a direct kitchen replacement, tile up to the new cabinet legs, you will probably have to rip the kick board down to sit on top of the tiles.

If you have floorboards make sure you use a green chipboard on top and a flexible adhesive by Dunlop, then the tiles won't crack as the floor flexes.

If you use green chipboard then make sure you make adjustments for the doors and cabinets, it will raise the floor height by 1" plus the adhesive plus the tile. Your pipes/connector may be thrown out with this methods but it is the proper way to do it.

Do it properly and do it once, they'll be there for years and if they have cracked then lifting and replacing can be a mammoth job.

Concrete floors are not a problem re the above.

goneracing

From personal experience.

If you are having inbuilt washer/dryer/dishwasher etc then the tiles (or laminate floor) should go in these areas. This is because when fitted the appliances would "fall off" the back of the tiled area causing aggro with setting them to the correct height and cause even greater aggro or damage when they have to be removed for maintenance / repair to themselves or the plumbing which will be behind.

Dont forget to have the height of the worktops set to allow for the thickness of the flooring.

Peartree

Totally agree with goneracing. My house had a fully integrated kitchen when I moved in and was tiled only up to the kickboards. When it came to getting out and replacing the washing machine (sitting on the original concrete floor a good centimetre below the top of the floortiles) it was a flipping hassle. We had to use wooden levers to get the *&%&ing old one out and the new one back in - you could easily damage the adjustable legs - and then it is a pig getting the new machine level as you can't easily move it in and out to adjust the back legs. The dishwasher is now playing up and I'm dreading how much faffing around we'll have to do to get a new one in place!

shown73

If you are only doing the floor, then eventually you will have to do the cupboards, etc. If only tiled up to the plinth, that could cause major problems if the new cupboards were not exactly the same size/layout, and even if you change appliances, will they fit properly. Just my opinion, I'm in no way qualified.

benood

I would do the whole floor on the principle that I like to know the job has been done properly even if no one else does. Not that moneysaving but satisfying.

ScoobieGirl

I did the whole lot - laminate rather than tile though. Glad I did. I had a small leak and it was a lot easier to clean up than it would have been

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

We did the whole floor,the kitchen company said it would be better for the same reasons as Peartree has already said.

ritesh

This is an interesting point. When we had our kitchen extension built early this year we thought about how to do the tiling. Now, you can save money tiling just up to the plinths but there are certain drawbacks:-

1 As mentioned above the kitchen appliances (washing machine, dishwasher etc) will be lower and very difficult to move after

2 If you ever needed to replace your kitchen, or decided to change layout, you are going to be very limited

3 When my kitchen fitter came he was really glad to see we used common sense to tile whole floor.

In my honest opinion if it is the house that you are going to be living in for the forseeable future then, like benood, tiling the whole floor you know that the job has been done properly.