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ethan_cade

Hardwood to tile transition

7 years ago
Any ideas on how I can transition from the floor to the tile to cover up the edges?

Comment (1)

  • 7 years ago

    The problem I see is that the tile is slightly higher, and you have the floor and tile running right up to one another. This should have been dealt with earlier by leaving a perimeter of, say, 1-1/2" between the tile and the flooring, and inlaying a transition strip on all three sides, with miters at the corners. You can probably still accomplish this, but it will require very precise cutting away of the flooring material on the three sides, and using a flush cutter, like a Dremel Multi Max, to get up against that wall and to cut carefully into the corners.

    Once you have room to inlay a strip, you'll need something with a slight lip along both edges so that when it is installed it will cover up the irregular tile edges and any sloppiness in your cutting out of the floor. You are not going to be able to find exactly what you need at Home Depot or a lumber store, so it will have to be made. I don't know if you have the tools or the skills for this, but for a 1-1/2" gap you would start with hardwood trim maybe 2" wide and at least 1/4" higher than the tile. Then you would run it through a table saw or router to create a lip on each side. Because the heights of the tile and the floor are different, you would need to undercut the two sides of the trim by different amounts so that it would seamlessly fit over each floor surface without a gap; you also want the lip to be at least 1/4" high or more to minimize chances of it cracking off if it gets stepped on (which is also a reason that the undersides of the lips should rest on the surface they are covering). After cutting the three strips to proper length, I would install them with silicone on the underside of the two lips, face nail the strips with a nail gun, and fill the holes.

    This is pretty easy to do if you have DIY skills and proper tools. However, if my description sounds daunting or confusing, or you don't have a saw or a table-mounted router, get a finish carpenter to fix this for you. You definitely need to trim this out, so it doesn't look like a project you walked away from when it was 90% done.