I'm about to embark on my first attempt to lay hardwood. It's 3/4" prefinished solid Brazilian cherry 2 1/4" strips. It is going on a concrete slab that was previously carpeted. My dilemma is how to handle 2 doorway transitions.

The hardwood is being installed in our master bedroom and walk-in closet. However, the master bathroom (tile) is between the bedroom and the closet. In other words, you go from the bedroom through the bathroom to get to the closet. There are doors (not just open doorways) at each transition. To make it a bit more challenging, the doors are both at 45-degree angles to the hardwood flooring--but I'm not too concerned about that.

I have already installed 3/4" plywood underlayment and the necessary vapor barrier. So, the finished hardwood floor height will be 1 1/2". The finished bathroom tile height is almost 1/2". So, I need a 1" transition at both doors. By the way, the door between the bedroom/bathroom opens into the bathroom (away from the hardwood). The door between the bathroom/closet opens into the closet (toward the hardwood).

I've spoken with several "experts" and I've searched all over the web (maybe I'm not searching for the right words!) but haven't found a good answer to how to handle these transitions. The only thing that makes sense to me is to fabricate my own transition that will give me a 1" drop over a width of 1 1/2" (thickness of the doors) and install them directly under the doors. I have a woodworking shop so that wouldn't be too challenging. However, since I'd have to trim the door bottoms to clear the hardwood, I'm wondering if the 1" (actually more like 1 1/8") gap would look bad from the bathroom side.

Is this the way to go, or is there a better solution that I haven't considered? Is a 1" drop across only 1 1/2" of space going to be too steep?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve

Using the flooring, glue up and mill, sand and finish your own masterpiece.