Hi,
I'm replacing all the carpet in the house with hardwood. I've finished the main floor and it looks great. I have a design question for the upstairs. The master bedroom has a double door entrance to the hallway. The planks in the Masterbedroom run perpendicular to the hallway. The entrance way is at 45 degrees. I was planning to rip the tonge and groove off a couple boards to make a single width wood threshold along the doorway. With that, I will be cutting the bedroom boards as well as the hallway boards at 45 degrees and butt them up against the threshold. Will this look okay? Is there a better way? I can simply not put in a threshold and continue the bedroom boards right out into the hallway, but then the boards will be running across the hallway instead of lengthwise down the hallway and will not be perpendicular to the floor joists. Also, if I do that, I will run into similar problems with another bedroom, also with a 45 degree entrance whose joists run perpendicular to the master bedroom. With that, one solution I CANNOT do is have a continuous floor througout the whole upstairs, although that would be nice. Any thoughts? Thanks!
Howard

I have a similar challenge in my foyer where the tile floor in the foyer is at a 45 degree angle to the field direction of the living room flooring.

I would think you need to supply a bit more info as to whether you're nailing/stapling or you're gluing as well as to what kind of flooring, engineered or solid....

Anyway, I can tell you what I did. I surrounded the foyer tile with a hardwood border by using the same flooring I'm using in the living room.
This border has the tongue side facing out. I cut the ends of the boards at a 45 deg. and routed a groove (using a slot cutter on my router table) in the ends such that they mate to the exposed border tongue. I have done this before.

The other method I've used in the past is to route a slot in both the thresold and the board ends and then using a spline (I make my own on a table saw). What determines the use of a spline vs. tongue/groove transition is what's on the other side of the thresold and how the flooring is laid in that room, or in your case, the hallway.....

Hope this isn't too confusing...

Disclaimer- I AM NOT A PRO FLOORING EXPERT but I have done a few naildowns. I'm here in this forum to learn how to do a glue down, my first.....

edit- I personally don't think it's a good idea to just butt the ends of the boards into the thresold as they will probably not be flush mated. There's always one or two that just won't sit at the same level as the thresold without the spline or TG mate-up.....

Thanks for the response. I have some challenges in that I've already nailed the threshold to the floor. I guess I'll have to rip that up, waisting a couple more boards. Second is that I have a router but not a router table. I think I may be able to use my table saw with the rip guide to cut a tongue along the edge of the boards if I'm careful. Wait, no I can't do that to the ends of the boards that will be up against the threshold. Too difficult to stand the boards on end at 45 degrees and run them through the table saw. O boy, another piece of equipment I don't have room for. I'll go out an buy a router table. I'm nailing down 3/4" x 5" solid oak prefinished hand scrapped flooring. It's just gorgeous once it's laid down. 2 7/8 room down, 3 1/8 and hallway to go. Thanks!

Howard

I have also used a tenoning jig which locks the flooring piece vertically in the table saw. The problem, or limitation here, is that the saw kerf, or groove, is 'what it is' as you cannot control its width and you need to match it up on the mating side, in your case the thresold. This is because you'll need a 'custom' fit spline to get everything tight and level.....once again, you'll need to rip the spline on the table saw......

This was my first way (tenoning jig) to 'machine' the flooring and worked well before I aquired a router table.

Thanks again for the response. I think I may get more future use out of a router table than a tensioning jig. I'm assuming there is a good variety of router bit sizes to slide a decent groove. I'll then use the table saw to cut the splines as you suggeted. Ah yes, the last 10% is going to take me 90% of the time

Hi,
So I ripped up the threshold and put a new one down leaving the tongue and grooves in tact. I purchased a router table and 1/4 slot bit to router slots in the ends of the boards I cust at 45%. It was easy to do, worked perfectly and the joints between the board ends and the threshold are secure with tongue and groove. Thanks to all!