Our living room floors are hardwood and our kitchen is tile. This itself isn't a problem, but whoever installed these floors finished the gap between the two surfaces with basically just a chunk of wood. We never did like how it looked, and it stuck up from the floor almost a half an inch! This "lip" made it impossible for Jackson to scoot from room to room when he was in his walker. This is why we set out on a mission to fix the situation. Here's how it went:
This is a shot of the transition in our entry way (the one that I replaced between the kitchen and living room was exactly the same). Look at how much that board sticks up over the level of the floor!
First, I ripped up the board. It was sealed to the concrete floor with some wood shims and some industrial adhesive. Since I pulled the board up a couple weeks before completing this project, I packed the gaps with cardboard so that Jackson would be able to move freely from room to room. Notice how the ends of the hardwood that were concealed under the transition are all "gnarled" up.
I needed to make the gap 3" wide in order to get rid of all the messed up ends of the hardwood. First, I marked my cut line.
Next, I scored the entire length with my Dremel. I couldn't cut all of the way through, but I was able to cut about 80% of the way to the bottom - I simply snapped off the remaining pieces with a wedge and a hammer. This process created A TON of smoke and it smelled awesome! (by the way, by awesome I mean horrible...)
This is the wood after it was cut.
Next, I cleaned the entire channel.
Then I applied some mastic (adhesive)
Then I set my tile. After it was set, I let it dry for 24 hours.
I did have to clean up some of the excess adhesive
Tonight I applied the grout.
...and cleaned off the excess.
And voila! The finished product! This added a little decorative touch to the floor and, more importantly, made the two surfaces level so that J-Man can move wherever he wants! Now I only have 6 more to do...
