[Xtrememtnbiker]

So I'm curious, what's the preference, shoe moulding or no shoe moulding?

If possible, will you scribe the toe kick to the floor and not use shoe moulding?

 

[mikeswoods]

Scribe the toe kick ---seldom use shoe ---only when hiding old damaged floors----

 

[country_huck]

We use shoe molding even on the custom made stuff.

 

[overanalyze]

Scribe the toe kick. Shoe only if necessary due to really bad floors.

 

[rrk]

I never us shoe on cabinets, some people complain it's too hard to clean. Kitchen floors are cleaned the most, so I have been told by cleaning freaks.

 

[Jimbo2015]

I was always told shoe molding is used to hide poor workmanship

 

[Youngin']

I've never seen shoe on cabinet kickers with our usual crew. I have seen another company use shoe to hide hack job scribes though.

I only like shoe if it fits the with the look of rest of the trim.

 

[dsconstructs]

I only use it if not replacing the existing floor. Yep.....I get those jobs frequently it seems.

 

[CarpenterSFO]

For a typical kitchen, it's just adding fussy detail where none is needed, and making it harder to clean, IMO.

One of the 2 exceptions that I can remember was a dark stained cherry kitchen with wood floors and a very furniture-y style. The other was a house with a very uneven, dark linoleum floor, where shoe mold was more attractive than the scribed edge.

 

[Leo G]

My toekicks are loose. I install a kitchen and then have them put the final coat on the kitchen floor. After that I install the toekick covers and they get scribed to the floor.

Kitchen floors that are out more then 1/4" can be troublesome for certain details. Especially end of the run cabinets. Without a custom panel that is taller then the cabinets you may end up having a space underneath it. Covering that with shoe might be one way to go.

 

[Xtrememtnbiker]

My toekicks are loose. I install a kitchen and then have them put the final coat on the kitchen floor. After that I install the toekick covers and they get scribed to the floor.

Kitchen floors that are out more then 1/4" can be troublesome for certain details. Especially end of the run cabinets. Without a custom panel that is taller then the cabinets you may end up having a space underneath it. Covering that with shoe might be one way to go.

You addressed the question I was going to ask if people say no shoe.
We've done it both ways, more and more jobs lately with no shoe when possible. The end of a run that's shimmed is the place I run into problems.

Right now, we pretty much install two types of cabinets, RTA cabinets, or Lowe's cabinets. Both types are the standard 3" increment box cabinets and we're not usually getting custom stuff for them. You can buy a "finished end" which is a 1/4" skin you attach but it doesn't really change the look much at all, and it's not taller than the cabinet, so you either have a gap at the floor or a gap at the counter.

Our typical detail would be putting a 1/4" finished kick across the front scribed to the floor with an outside corner trim to hide the end and shoe moulding as needed.

But it also just depends on what's in the boxes of trim when I open them up. I was wanting to get some feedback from everybody so I can chat with Dad about it and we have a solid plan going forward.

Thanks all for the input.

 

[J L]

You addressed the question I was going to ask if people say no shoe.
We've done it both ways, more and more jobs lately with no shoe when possible. The end of a run that's shimmed is the place I run into problems.

You should be shooting a laser around the room and finding your low spot in the floor. Use the low spot to determine your finished height and start setting based on that. Doing this avoids the end of the run that's shimmed up. It is a little more work as you'll end up cutting down more cabinets but you'll avoid the gap at the end of the run.

 

[Xtrememtnbiker]

You should be shooting a laser around the room and finding your low spot in the floor. Use the low spot to determine your finished height and start setting based on that. Doing this avoids the end of the run that's shimmed up. It is a little more work as you'll end up cutting down more cabinets but you'll avoid the gap at the end of the run.

Never thought of doing it that way. I always use the laser to find the high spot and set based on that.

On some kitchens. That could be cutting every cabinet but one though to avoid a piece of shoe on the end. Might work sometimes but I can't see that being possible on a more budget minded job.

 

[J L]

It takes more time to do it that way but the end result is better. One thing you can do is if your floor is off 1/4", trim all of the cabinets except the one to be scribed down 1/4" and then shim them up to level like you normally would. This is opposed to scribing each cabinet to the floor which is much more labor intensive.

At the end of the day, the budget and client expectations determine how you'll proceed.

 

[TNTRenovate]

Rarely do we use shoe molding on kitchen cabinets. We scribe the toe kick if needed.

I've also never set off of the low spot.

 

[J L]

Most of the cabinets I set are wrapped with baseboard and the toe kicks are a furniture base style. I end up having to cut down lots of cabinets but I only have to scribe the base to keep my reveals on my faceframes the same. On some of our closet cabinets the side panels go straight to the finished floor with no base or shoe so they all have to be scribed perfectly.

Technically you don't have to start setting off of the low spot, but you have to find out where your end of the run lands and use that as your determining factor in laying out your heights. If there's 2 ends of the run, use the lower one to set off of.

 

[hdavis]

I don't recall using shoe mold.

 

[Xtrememtnbiker]

Rarely do we use shoe molding on kitchen cabinets. We scribe the toe kick if needed.

I've also never set off of the low spot.

So what do you do on the end of a run Rob?

 

[TNTRenovate]

So what do you do on the end of a run Rob?

That does usually get shoe. Returned at the toe kick, but it didn't run under the cabinets.

 

[Leo G]

You should be shooting a laser around the room and finding your low spot in the floor. Use the low spot to determine your finished height and start setting based on that. Doing this avoids the end of the run that's shimmed up. It is a little more work as you'll end up cutting down more cabinets but you'll avoid the gap at the end of the run.

That doesn't always work. If the floor variation is to great and your appliances end up on the high areas they may not fit.

And that is assuming you are going to scribe the whole kitchen to the floor. I use to do that, it was the way I did things back them. Looked like the kitchen grew out of the floor. It was also time consuming and a pain. The kitchen was made tall enough so I could scribe it down and have no issues with appliances. Some of my kitchens were 2" out because I did a lot of 18th century homes.

Now I do a combination of the two. Scribing and shimming. I try to shim everything with no scribing, but sometimes it's not possible.