Transition from tile to 9/16" inch wood floor

[Amy L.]

I am hoping someone can help me out with some idea's on how to ease the transition from my 9/16th engineered wood flooring ( total height is around

11/16" due to foam underlayment and 6 mil poly vinyl) to tile which is about 3/8" thick. I purchased some T-Molding (same type of wood as the flooring), but because of the size difference between the two surfaces the t-molding rocks between the two surfaces and no matter how you position it - it looks just plain terrible because it does not fit due to the height offsets.

The floor is being installed as floating so having the proper expansion gap between the two surfaces is also important. I would love to use the t-modling as it was fairly expensive and can't be returned since it was special order. Any idea's would be greatly appreciated on how to solve this problem.

Worst case scenario I may have to scap the t-modling and buy one of those metal transistion peices as that would work in this case.

Amy

[no(SPAM)vasys]

You can see if there is a "reducer" or threshold trim available. See the following link for ideas.

[LRod]

Your best bet (and one I'm going to have to employ myself, albeit for different reasons) might be to either mill a transition strip from raw lumber, or buy one of the unfinished ones from the borg and modify it.

Basically, you're looking at a dado on either side of a central rib, with one dado being higher than the other, then a sloping top. One slope will be to nearly a point (rests on the wood flooring) and the other side will have a bit of a slope (perhaps equal to the other side), then a vertical drop. It's not necessary to have it feather out to nothing--there are lot's of places where a seemingly significant transition is done. Think marble threshold, or any threshold, for that matter.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Taking your scenario a step further, you can also buy matching (and expensive) trim to the floor and modify that also. I had to do that in a couple of places in my house when I put the flooring down. ________ /________ \ can become

___________ |_________\ I just glued it in place instead of having a center vertical strip.

[Amy L.]

This may just work - however what is the odds that the T-Modling is the same color all the way through (brazilian cherry)?

Amy

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Chances are slim as it is probably just a covering. You take the material off the bottom, not the top so it will not matter. If you have to take some of an exposed edge, dark stain will cover it and you'll never see the difference.

[Fred]

Any chance you could route an eighth inch off one side of the molding so that it doesn't rock?