Hello,

I am installing 3/4th solid African mahogany in a 24x18 family room which has a step up from the other part of the house (one entrance is 8 ft wide and the other is about 6). I purchased a matching stair nose for this area and was looking at it today and it is not an overlap kind but has a groove on it to accept the tongue of the other flooring.

I was planning on installing the stair nose with glue and face nails, then butt the rest of the flooring to it (flooring will be running perpendicular to the stair nose), but I was thinking, what then happens to the expansion gap, cause there will effectively be none where the regular flooring meets the stair nose. Is this something I should be worried about? What other options do I have in this situation? Thanks!

On another note, has anyone run into a situation with these transitions where the flooring doesn't fit tight into it? Seems like the stair nose threshold's groove is noticeably larger then the flooring (not sure if there is anything I can do to tighten this up).

The tongues on the ends of the boards that abut the stair nosing should slip into the groove on the stair nosing. When boards expand they do so widthwise...lengthwise expansion is essentially negligible and needn't be provided for. If the groove on the stair nosing is too wide you could add some thin shims. You could also fill it with wood filler and re-groove it if you have the tools.