Home Renovation Tips: Flexible Doorway Joint for Hardwood & Limestone gap

During our bathroom renovation, we installed natural limestone on the floor replacing old tiles with massive grouts. It fitted perfectly with our Brazilian hardwood flooring.

Beautiful, clean and modern.

The problem!

I was super happy with our professional tile installers. They finished the bathroom and OMG it looked gorgeous, except, why does there always have to be an except?

Why can't it just be perfect all the way!

A big joint between hardwood and natural stone.

The bathroom doorway joint didn't line up correctly and there was a height difference. Big enough that the doorway joint would never be seamless, except if we ripped up the first few boards of the hardwood flooring and glued them down again which was not an option.

Our installer suggested a T-joint, made out of metal! The one that is screwed in place.

After all that hard work, that was the solution!

Screwing down a metal bar between two natural materials.

Not exactly the look I was going for.

My solution, home renovation tips

I started looking for an alternative and bought a natural hardwood joint, but that didn't work as the height and depth of the gap was not the same all the way between the door frames. This was a mess!

I was surprised how limited choices there are for this type of common renovation problem. Surely in such a big industry they have found a clever solution that doesn't diminish the quality of the craftsmanship laying natural floor and enhances the feeling of luxury and minimalistic living. I also searched for home renovation tips and just could not find anything to I thought would give the finish I was looking for. I did not spend all that money on natural floor to have some ugly quick fix.

My solution was a really cool material from Flextrim, flexible floor reducer, made in the USA that I found of course on Amazon. I knew someone had invented some clever solutions for all the builder graded houses in the suburbs that are being renovated. What an clever product.

Flextrim to my rescue.

Basically it is an oak grained textured rubber floor reducer which is paintable, stainable and waterproof.

What more could I ask for - perfect.

Now I only needed to get out a sharp knife and carve it out so it would hid this dreadful finish!

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This is what both ends looked like after trimming with a mixture of a window scraper and a snap off utility knife. It took some time, but I just sat on the floor and regularly tested how much more I needed to carve off. It was relatively easy to cut and manipulate so it fitted the doorway joint perfectly. Then I stained it with dark oak stain and put on one coat of vanish.

Problem solved!

Do you like my solution?

A perfectly fitted joint between two natural flooring materials.

It looks like wood, it fits and was easy to manipulate to hid the horrible gap between two natural materials, wood and stone.

No screws, no mess.

Finally our bathroom and downstairs bedroom renovation is finished.

Happy DIY-ing!