Should You Put Down The Floor Or Walls First

After the demo it s time to put in new flooring and cabinets.

Should you put down the floor or walls first.

If you are completely renovating a room by breaking down walls or expanding windows it seems likely that you would want to paint first and do the floors after all of the refuse is removed. So if you put you subfloor down first it will probably take just as long if not longer to do all the additional measurements to find the plates for accuracy. If time is of the essence it s quicker to hang the drywall and tape out the walls first. Consider this familiar scenario.

The reason for that is that this can damage the floors. In new construction homes where no flooring has been laid yet this is the way it works. Also the lack of baseboards and other floor trim means you can paint all the way down without any masking. One important reason to install new flooring first is that when you change flooring the baseboards will often need to change position.

You are doing a full scale rip down remodel of your kitchen where everything comes out and gets replaced including walls cabinets flooring and appliances. The main hesitation that homeowners have in finishing floors before walls is the fear of drips splatters and spills on their new wood or carpet. Stud walls need to be installed over double plated floor joices for the extra weight. Construction s a messy job and if you install the flooring first you ll spend more time on the walls because you ll have to be more careful not to drip joint compound on a new floor.

For many people their instinct tells them to paint the walls first so they can eliminate the fear of dripping globs of paint on their gorgeous new floors. The general construction rule is to work from the top of the room downward. Also it s often better to paint the ceilings first especially given that the ladders will rest on the floors. It isn t critical whether you install flooring or paint the walls first in an empty gutted room but there are a few reasons why installing the flooring first might eliminate potential problems.

If you prefer doing the shower floor first you can avoid accidental accidents by covering the new floor. This may result in cracked tile. However professional tilers will disagree with this. Why should i do my flooring before i paint my walls.

For example if you switch from a thick carpet to a modern laminate floor your baseboards will need to be lowered by 1 2 or 3 4 of an inch. Walls are put up first then the floor covering comes later. From there you should rip up the floors. Or difficult to remove mortar drops when tiling the wall.

If you tile the floor first you may accidentally damage the new floor by dropping things on it.