Should You Put Down The Floor Or Walls First

This may result in cracked tile.

Should you put down the floor or walls first.

The general construction rule is to work from the top of the room downward. 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. Also the lack of baseboards and other floor trim means you can paint all the way down without any masking. 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.

Consider this familiar scenario. If you prefer doing the shower floor first you can avoid accidental accidents by covering the new floor. The ideal is to first do any prep work to the walls e g ripping up wall paper sanding and patching walls etc. 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. 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. 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. Also it s often better to paint the ceilings first especially given that the ladders will rest on the floors.

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. Or difficult to remove mortar drops when tiling the wall. From there you should rip up the floors. This problem however can be easily prevented and is not nearly as serious a risk as those involved in painting first.

In new construction homes where no flooring has been laid yet this is the way it works. A professional painting contractor should take proper care in setting up the. Why should i do my flooring before i paint my walls. Stud walls need to be installed over double plated floor joices for the extra weight.

One important reason to install new flooring first is that when you change flooring the baseboards will often need to change position. If you tile the floor first you may accidentally damage the new floor by dropping things on it. After the demo it s time to put in new flooring and cabinets. 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.

The reason for that is that this can damage the floors.