Kitchen Floors and Cabinets - same time?

[Art Mulder]

My house is about 22 years old now, and the kitchen cabinets and the kitchen floor are starting to look rather tired. (We've been here 8 years)

My plan has always been to wait on replacing the cabinets until our kids are older. Kids are hard on cabinets. They lean on doors, they step on drawers, they open doors too far, and so on. Considering that our youngest is just shy of three, I was hoping to make the current cabinets limp along for several more years.

However, the floor is also deteriorating. Right now it has sheet vinyl flooring. However in more and more spots we are starting to see cuts and holes appearing. (yes holes - like pencil-tip sized, and even a few 1/8"x1/8" holes. Don't ask me where they come from! :confused: )

Adding to the complication is the fact that our kitchen is a galley style, with a eat-in nook at one end, and a hallway at the other. So the kitchen vinyl now stretches over a 32x8' stretch of house (with cutouts for the cabinets, closets and so on) That is a pretty large chunk to think about replacing.

I've thought about just replacing the floor - but then what about the cabinets? Just go around them? Is that common? That would definitely constrain our layout when we get around to doing the cabinets. This vinyl is glued down, and will NOT come up nicely. (I earlier patche one bad section, and scraping and sanding out the glue was a huge mess) So I anticipate either placing new vinyl directly over the old, or first putting down 1/8" plywood.

Anyone got any good advice? How have you handled this?

What would make a good "Five year floor" ? Just a short term solution until we decide to rip out the cabinets without spending an arm and leg.

thanks
...art

[Kirk (KC) Constable]

One man's opinion...

You've got young children and unexplained holes and tears in the linoleuim. You're proabably STILL gonna have young children for some time yet. If you plan to do the cabinets later, then I'll suggest you already have a 'five year' floor. If you just can't stand it, lay out some inexpensive throw rugs in strategic places. Tape them down if you need to. Spend the 'saved' money on a better floor/cabinet later on.

KC

[Joe Pelonio]

Is the old floor fairly flat (no texture to it)? The easiest solution, that will look good but be inexpensive is the adhesive backed square tiles. You have to do a good job cleaning the old floor so they stick but much easier than sheet goods to install and butt up against the counters.