So my wife and I just finished a renovation of our kitchen in a 1930 California Spanish home with old oak floors. I was pressing hard for a wood kitchen floor that is continuous with out dining room/sitting area since it would look better but when the old floor was pulled up there was no original wood there... Our contractor said he would have to charge us another $3000 to take out the kitchen cabinets, remove the subfloor, and put in a new one to drop the level to our current floor, so we just took his advice and went with tile. He said it would be 1/2 taller overall.

After they finished the tile floor and discovered that it ramps up an extra 3/4 inch or so as you go to one side of the kitchen to the other. Thus, the transition from the tile floor to the old hard wood ranges from 3/4 to almost 1 1/2 inch on the other side (its a bit difficult to measure). This really bothers me and I especially don't like having a thick transition, which he knew and is thicker than his estimate.

We ignored the transition being off for several weeks until we discovered that we really have to replace our wood floor at this point as it has been refinished several times. We then realized that we are going to have to have a complicated system of shims to get a new floor even with the kitchen floor. Furthermore, the floor leaves the dinning area and goes around the corner to other parts of the house so we somehow have to have it drop back down... The whole situation really makes me angry. We can't really remove the kitchen floor and drop the cabinets because the wall has been tiled up and there is a quartz countertop.

BTW - the original wood floor inches away from the kitchen is totally level (I have pictures)

We still owe our contractor a payment. I said we would have to have a flooring person come in to see how much "shimming" would cost as that should be on him... I estimated an addition $1200. He is totally blaming the situation on us stating that our floors are uneven and its not his fault. We spent hours upon hours debating whether to just put in a wood floor for a continuous floor into the kitchen and we repeatedly asked him to make any transitional as minimal as possible. I believe it was his obligation to tell us the floor was not going to come out even and pose a problem. He is denying any fault.

1. Any recommendations how to proceed with my contractor and with the project?

2. Is this his fault for not informing us it would not be a level floor and making it difficult to match up a floor later?

3. Should he pay for any "shimming" that has to occur (ie. we take it off his bill)?

4. Is it even possible to fix this situation and do people normally do that (I hate that we have a nearly 1" difference between floors... really bugs me)?

5. Anyone with any experience in this sort of issue?

-- you can see pics of the different floors with a level here:
http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/28 ... ted-issues

thank you

As far as your tile installation in the kitchen, any leveling, or floor flattening issues should have been considered and planned for by your contractor, prior to setting tile. To have a floor ramping up 3/4" from one side to another is unacceptable in my opinion. To have a transition vary from 3/4" to 1 1/2" from one side to other is completely unacceptable, both from an appearance standpoint and also from a safety standpoint, as this would pose a potential trip hazard.

Based on your description, I am guessing there are a couple of layers of subflooring in the kitchen area, if height was an issue with the adjacent area, which apparently still has the original oak flooring. Is that right? The kitchen has likely been remodeled previously. What was the "old floor" in the kitchen that he pulled up?

Regardless, once the decision was made by you to forego pulling cabinetry and installing new subflooring, going instead with tile over what was there, the contractor, or his tile setting sub, should have considered adjacent floor height issues and floor flatness before setting the tile. From what you described, I would think an old school floated mud floor would have been the best solution to flatten out the kitchen floor prior to tile setting. Even so, with the cabinets in place, you would still likely encounter height issues under the cabinet toe kicks and at the transition. However, with a flat substrate, at least the transition would be the same height across the opening and the resulting finished kitchen floor flat.

You mentioned your home is a 1930's vintage. Is the "old oak" floor in the adjacent areas the original floor, as far as you know? If so, you should have anticipated that it may have been refinished a time or two and checked to see if it had enough left to do it again. Supposing there was original oak in the kitchen, under what ever floor was most recently there, you would have still had to refinish the entire floor in order for it to match throughout the house.

If there wasn't enough floor left in the adjacent area to refinish, then the entire floor would have had to be replaced anyway, sort of where you are at now, with the exception of the un-level tiled kitchen floor. As far as any shimming that might be required for the new wood floor to be installed in the adjacent area, I don't see that as the responsibility of your contractor, especially if he isn't contracted to do that floor. However, I do see him as being responsible for the less than acceptable tile work in the kitchen. You might want to consider posting the tile work in question on the John Bridge tile forum to get a professional opinion on what is an acceptable standard. It may give you some leverage in dealing with him on that issue.