My house has a step down running the full length of the main floor. I am installing engineered maple in the living/dining areas. The living area is at the front of the house and the dining area at the rear, that one step lower down. The house has a more or less open floor plan and the hall portion is adjacent to the living room. I have installed ceramic tiles in the hall with a simple metal strip edging it. The hardwood floor will be installed snug against the metal strip at the same level as the ceramic tile with no transition piece. The long side of the flooring will run parallel to the ceramic tile. The length of floor where the two flooring materials will meet is 8 feet. The rest of the length of the living room is a closet that acts as a divider between the living room and the back portion of the hall. This closet is about 6 feet in length and is not perfectly parallel with the outside wall facing it across the room, being about 3/4 of an inch askew. I ran the ceramic in line with the closet wall so it too is not parallel with that outside wall.

Now comes the part about the nosing: it is to edge that one step separating the living from the dining area and is 9'.7" long and you guessed it: the step is not square with the direction in which the wood flooring will run. I have drawn on the floor a line parallel to the ceramic-wood transition roughly in the centre of the room and then a perpendicular line to it near the edge of the step. The difference between the actual edge of the step and the reference line is 5/8 of an inch at one end of the step.

My questions:

1) is it ok to install the nosing at an angle to the edge of the step so that it is square with the direction of the floor boards to be installed, leaving a 5/8" gap between the back of the nosing and the structure of the step at one end?

2) I will glue the nosing down. It appears I have to face nail it, since I can't get at the underside of it in any way as it rests against the beam running the length of the house. How many nails should I use, exactly where and what are the best nails for this application (obviously finish nails, but how long and what gauge. BTW I don't have a nailer, so I have to use my trusty hammer)? I will drill pilot holes not to split the wood.

3) would it be possible to use long screws installed at an angle from the underside of the nosing through the "riser" (since it is faced with gypsum board and the screw heads can easily be hidden with a layer of mud and paint) to avoid face nailing or is the risk of running through the upper surface of the nosing not worth the bother, bearing in mind that the flat portion of the nosing is only 1/2 an inch thick to match the thickness of the engineered wood?

Sorry I am so long winded. Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated

OK had to get the darn thing installed so this what I did: I took a piece of 3/4 inch square pine to extend the edge of the step, planed it from 5/8 ths to about 1/8 th of an inch at the other end, glued and nailed it to the edge of the step and then installed my nosing at right angle to my reference line in the centre of the room. At ten feet long, the nosing had a slight twist just to make my job a bit more interesting. I glued it with Le Page Premium and nailed five 2 1/2 " finishing nails an inch in from the rear edge, one at each end, one dead centre and the other two splitting the difference between the end nails and the centre one. I now have to get some putty to match the maple and then I will be ready to start installing the flooring.

BTW you pros earn every penny you make having to contend with houses that are always out of square and never level, let alone the ridges and valleys in sub-floors that you never knew were there until you get down on your hands and knees.

Regards

I think you handled this pretty well. When I've run into these types of situations, I have found there's never a single remedy. Each job will require a specific "fix" or repair. I do prefer to install the nosing square with the flooring. In your case, you made a tapered riser to accommodate the out of square step down. This seems like a good fix and something I would have considered. One could have used thinner stock and added furring strips behind it to square up the step down as opposed to planning down thicker material. But either way, the result is the same; a riser and nosing that is now square to the flooring.