Hi,

Our home has an open floor plan with wood floor throughout the first floor, including the kitchen. There are no thresholds or transition strips between any of the rooms and the floor from the kitchen to the family room runs together.

As you can imagine, the kitchen floor has worn more than the rest of the 1st floor over the 18 years we've lived here. (We are the 1st and only owners.) There are some water marks and quite thin spots by the kitchen sink and primary work areas.

We had a wood floor contractor over to take a look and he wouldn't do it without refinishing the entire 1st floor. But we were wondering if anyone has ever put in low-profile thresholds and just refinished the kitchen floor. I think it would look nice. I even thought of staining the kitchen floor darker; throughout all the rooms, the flooring is a natural light stain and the wood is birch (I think).

Is this a crazy idea? If so, is there anything at all that we can do to improve the worst spots in the kitchen without having to refinish the entire 1st floor??? Can't afford it and don't want to do it.

Thanks!!

You may be able to isolate the kitchen floor by adding a piece of flooring across the doorway between the door jambs cut into the existing flooring. The floor will need to be sanded anyway, so just a little bit of careful carpentry to make a "floor joint". The edge of the existing floor in the doorway can have a micro-bevel between the older floor and the new flush plank across the door. Sometimes an architect will specify this.