How to protect paint on lower kitchen cabinets?

[GreenSheep]

I'm painting our kitchen cabinets. The first owner of our house built it himself, so some things are kind of an... unexpected design. You can see what I mean in the attached photo. (Well, never mind. I can't seem to get the attachment to work. There's a vertical 2x4 for support between each pair of cabinets, and it goes all the way to the floor and is not recessed like most cabinet bottoms are, to make space for feet.) I'm sure the paint will get scuffed on the bottoms of those 2x4s if I don't plan ahead to avoid it.

We're a shoes-off-inside household, but I still worry about the occasional clueless guest, and more likely, my own clogs that I wear in the kitchen to avoid sore feet/legs when cooking for long stretches. Even slippers would probably end up making marks over time.

So... what to do? I considered those vinyl baseboards you often see in commercial buildings, but I think it would look weird, and I worry that it wouldn't go tightly around those 2x4s anyway. Something like this is what I'm talking about:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000R3WGTS/?coliid=ITW85MLHP2P6Z&colid=2Y9YGMO4SW2FD&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

I suppose I could do traditional wood baseboards and just plan on repainting/replacing them every so often, but I'd rather not create work for myself down the road if possible. And I'm a perfectionist, so one scratch would drive me crazy, and I'd be perpetually crawling around the kitchen with a paintbrush.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[lthenderson]

For painted surfaces that stand a good chance of getting scuff marks on them, I use either a high sheen paint like gloss latex or acrylic enamel.  For lower sheen paints, you can apply a coat of polyurethane to add durability and make it easier to wipe clean but you need to match it up with your paint. If you used oil paint, you need to use solvent based polyurethane and if you use latex paint, you need water based polyurethane.  None of this will prevent a pointed object from scratching through to the paint but all of this will help prevent scuff marks and make any that do occur easy to wipe off.

[GreenSheep]

For painted surfaces that stand a good chance of getting scuff marks on them, I use either a high sheen paint like gloss latex or acrylic enamel.  For lower sheen paints, you can apply a coat of polyurethane to add durability and make it easier to wipe clean but you need to match it up with your paint. If you used oil paint, you need to use solvent based polyurethane and if you use latex paint, you need water based polyurethane.  None of this will prevent a pointed object from scratching through to the paint but all of this will help prevent scuff marks and make any that do occur easy to wipe off.

Thanks, but yeah, I'm more concerned about scratches than scuff marks (I probably worded that wrong in the original post), since the paint is very dark. I suppose a polyurethane might help with the "shallower" scratches that don't go all the way through to the paint, though.

[SunnyDays]

Tile (grouted or peel and stick)?  Vinyl plank flooring?

[GreenSheep]

Tile (grouted or peel and stick)?  Vinyl plank flooring?

Ooh, that's something I hadn't thought of! I've used peel and stick tile under my kitchen sink in the past, and while I wouldn't tile a floor with it, it could definitely look decent enough for this weird cabinet situation. And it should be super easy. Thanks!