Another engineered flooring installation question or two...

[Melanie]

Everyone was so helpful when I had to remove the nasty carpet tacks and discovered they weren't that difficult to remove after all.

Here's my next question. I'm installing a bamboo engineered flooring in my living room. The bedroom is done and I want it to transition perfectly from bedroom to livingroom. The difficulty is that my bedroom doorway has all these nooks and crannies. The flooring will not slip under the door jamb or the baseboards as eng. flooring is thicker than laminate or carpet (which just slipped underneath BTW). I can hide inside and outside with quarter round but the part in between is the diffculty. Any tips? My BF suggested I just piece it together rather than trying to make some difficult cuts on one board.

The next question is I have a tiled fireplace floor and a tiled hallway floor. I can use a transition board in the hallway but can't really do this for the fireplace area as it would look stupid and I need to do it on 3 sides. The tiles would be level with the flooring when done. Any tips?

TIA, Melanie

[jimbob]

It sounds like you are installing a floating floor. All of these types of floor require a gap between the wall and the edge of the floor to allow for expansion. Some people remove their baseboards before they install the flooring, some leave the baseboards and install quarter round to cover the gap. Either way is acceptable. It's a matter of preference. Quarter round should not be used inside the door threshold. The door may hit it and it looks stupid. You need to undercut the doorjambs and door casings. The flooring will not just slip under it because you have to fold it at an angle to click it into the rest of the floor. I put down Kahrs engineered wood flooring. Their procedure for going through doorways is to chisel off part of the locking mechanism to to floor edges can slide together flat. You have to glue these together here because you have cut out some of the locking mechanism. This allows you to slide the floor under the door casing/jamb and then connect it to the rest of the flooring. Anyway, your floor manufacturer should have a specific procedure for dealing with this situation. It's time consuming to do this part right, but I think it looks much better. But it's your house and it's up to you. If people come over and bitch about the quarter round in your doorways just throw them out. When I did my floors I cut the floor around the door casings and fooled with all kinds of pieces of molding and quarter round before I gave up and just did it right.

[Melanie]

When I did my floors I cut the floor around the

I ripped out the carpet and the tack boards from this area on the weekend and I think you are right about undercutting the door jambs and door casing. It seems easier.

So, my next question is do I need special tools for this? Do I have to buy a door jamb electric saw or can I get by with a hack saw? I reread the flooring manual and they claim I can use a hack saw. But what is the reality of that?

I decided to rip out ALL the carpet, underlay and tack boards throughout the living room first, get the 2 layers of plastic insulation down first and then start on the doorway. No wait, undercut the doorway first, then lay down the sheeting. I expect that part will be messy and don't want to have to deal with cleaning off the plastic.

Just have to figure out where to put all my furniture. And if I like the sofa in the bathroom I might keep it in there.

~Melanie

[Malcolm Hoar]

It's easier with something (inexpensive) like this:

Obviously, a power tool will make it easier still, for a price.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Yes, the saw is called a Dovetail saw and I got mine for about $10 at Home Depot. It has an offset handle so you can grip it and cut without scraping your knuckles. Cut off just a tad more than the thicknes sof the flooring. YOu can use a piece of scrap flooring as a guide to rest the saw blade on.

NOt much mess. Two seconds with a shop vac and the sawdust is cone.

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