Two more questions for the experts... and thanks again for all who have contributed!

1) In a hallway, I'll be running strip parallel to a tiled kitchen. The height difference appears to be less than 1/8", and I'd like to leave a small expansion gap (1/8 - 1/4") since the width of the boards will be only 40". Will a 1/8" step be that noticeable? I'd like NOT to use a "T" transition piece if possible

2) I'll need to cut carpeting back from the hallway that leads into my living room. Do I cut the carpet "long" or just put the straightedge along the intended line of my wood and trim with a sharp utility knife? I figure I'd need to cut the tongue off the the last board too, as that will butt up to carpeting for a 20 foot length. Do I need to put any type of profile on the edge of the ripped board or just cut it at a right angle? At least, I figure I'd put a micro bevel on the edge with one swipe of a sharp hand plane. If some other profile is desired then I could probably do that too with the woodworking tools I already have.

Again, thanks in advance!

1) I think a 1/8" height variance is acceptable and should not be very noticeable.

2) Cut the carpet long and fold back out of the way. When the wood flooring is completed, trim the carpet even with the last piece of flooring. Use a kicker to kick the carpet onto a piece of tackstrip installed approx. 3/8" from the edge of the wood flooring. Tuck the carpet into the 3/8" gap between the tackstrip and wood flooring. I will sometimes "relieve" the edge of a board that will terminate against carpet, especially if the flooring is a little higher than the carpet. Sand it, router it, plane it, etc. Whatever floats your boat.

Hmmm... a new tool, a carpet "kicker".

Don't have that one, and significantly cheaper than the pneumatic Bostitch nailer! Here I go to Ebay...

Thanks as always Gary!

You have a 20' length of carpet to trim? You may want to hire a local carpet installer to handle that. The reason? You don't want to let the carpet lose it's "stretch" to the tackstrip. Although you've probably already pulled it off the strip. Kicking a rug in a 20' opening may not be that easy. One tends to get lumps and wrinkles. It may need to be power stretched back. Upload a photo of the situation.

Sounds like a good idea. I don't what to get into a situation on this project that is "irreversible", and I'd hate to have that happen on the "carpet" side of the project!

I'll try to upload some photos during the week.

As usual, thanks again!

not to highjack the thread but...

For those of you that do borders, do you end up having to rip the last row of the field? Otherwise you would have an uneven boarder around the room. I am not sure i like the ide of ripping a board either for the sake of continuity.

So what do you guys do?

I'm by no means an expert, but I planned to rip the last board to half width to maintain a 7/16" gap to the wall. All my boards will be about 3/4" to 1.5" wide due to the irregularities of my wall. That last row around the boarder will take time as I'll have to rip every board on my cabinet saw in the basement, as that beast is hardly portable!

Along with that, I'll have to route a groove in the center board on each side of the field as I go around. Where's my router? Attached to the extension table on the cabinet saw, back downstairs! That's at least seven more trips carrying four boards each time.

So you are ripping the border doars all to the same uniform size boards with your table saw and routing around them. makes sense i guess. That seems like a heck of a lot of work.

Is this the right way to do it or is there a shortcut?

No, I'm not ripping the boards to a specific uniform size. Every board will be "fit" to get a 7/16" gap so my 1/2" quarter round covers. As usual, my walls are bowed, sunken, nonparallel, and non-perpendicular. But my inner field is a perfect rectangle!

The only powered wood working tool that I can bring into the room is my miter saw. But that won't rip or route wood.

Sorry, i misread the original post i thought it was saying that you were going to be ripping all of the boards that make up the border. Now it makes sense and does not sound as bad.

Good luck. I would love to try this sometime, i wish i read how to do this before i started my project and i am about 50% done and can't start now. Maybe if i buy a new house i will try this.

I have taken pictures of my progress (slow = weekends only) and will post them once I choose a free picture server. Any suggestions?

I use flickr.com and it seems great so far.

Crappy carpet ripped up and tapered "wedges" are secured near the end of the room. This end of the room had a 1/2" drop in 30". Cutting tapers through plywood makes the plywood appear water damaged.


Another close-up:


Note the heavy hand planing (lighter wood color) on the floor just to the left of the gloves. This area filled a 5 gallon can with shavings. Here is a pic of the hand planing with a cheap stanley plane. I'll need to sharpen the blade before I do the next job!

Here the underlayment is down. The prep work took a full 8hr in this room.


The first row is laid. I aligned the small backing pieces using a 60" straightedge.


Here is an advantage I have using a medium shoulder plane to trim some of the boards to get a perfectly tight fit. Some of the planks were 1/64" under/over size in width and a few swipes using the shoulder plane trued them up.


The center field is now complete.


Here is the commercial straightedge jig that I normally use to break down 4x8's.


Note all the sawdust! I've just milled the groove around the outside in preparation for the cherry. The routing process produces the same amount of dust as the sawing.

I now see that my cherry is 1.0 mm thinner than my maple, so I'll need to run the first row over my table saw to remove one kerfs-width of wood from the bottom edge under the groove. That way I can slightly angle the wood so I get a good flush fit at the top while not contacting near the bottom of the board. I'm laying 4 layers of underlayment over the width of the first board and tapering it away from the center field to fill the small gap that the angle creates.

What a surprise!