I'm ripping up carpeting to install solid hardwood floors. On the edge of the room I have an existing banister and stair case. Neither of which i want to uninstall.

How can i work with this? For starters I assume that I should start my floor from the bannister and stairs rather then from the wall. But what can I do to avoid a big gap where the floor and banister meet? If I do make tight enough to avoid a gap, what kind of issues should I expect being that I now don't have an expansion space?


Would you recommend I some how cut a groove or bevel into the banister base?


Here are a few photos of the room.

arti:

You may be able to pick up some tips from Scubadoo that is going through a similar issue...

hardwood-layout-question-for-zig-zag-hallway-t9867.html

In the meantime, as long as you have expansion space along the opposite wall you'll be fine. One last thought, and I've run into it before, is to check how flat the area is along the bannister plate/rail. What could happen is once you begin laying the floor, you may get an occasional rise or fall in the subfloor. The effect is an inconsistent vertical fit to the rail where it may be 1/4" from the "rail top" in one spot and flush in another. It's the little things that stand out and what I always looked for when installing floors...and floor prep takes care of this one.

Thanks Ken, I'll check that out.

how thick is the bottom plate, looks a bit thicker than 3/4, is it square (looks like it has a rounded top to it in the picture)
Sometimes we cut them square with our tracksaw/fien then but the boards up again it. When the plates are put in most of the ones I've seen are almost leveled, so like ken said it can vary by 1/4 inch. We use speed shims (like small dense strips of cardboard and regular shims/ strips of shingles and glue to feather it out until its flush, first rows off the railing take the longest