installing hardwood against tile doorway

tim7488

I'm installing hardwood in my upstairs bedroom and hallway. The master bath has tile which ends in the doorway with a metal strip on the end. The hardwood will be close to the same height as the tile. A contractor I know, whose nail gun I'm borrowing, said he didn't think it would be a problem to butt the wood against the metal strip. The planks would be perpendicular to the strip. Online though, I see people very worried about expansion. I understand the wood as nowhere to expand, but how is this different from a plank that's in the middle of the room, tight between two other boards? I've seen thing online where people run border parallel to the next floor and butt the wood against that, which I could do, but it might look weird--one parallel plank along the doorway. Again, though, why wouldn't the wood against the border buckle?

Anyway, advise me. I can use a transition strip if I have to, I just don't like the looks of them. If I do the transition, should undercut the door molding to accommodate the transition, or cut the transition around the door? Thanks for reading my long entry. I can't find much info on transitions.

oberkc

I have a material transition similar to yours. I simply butted the two together (small gap, actually). Thickness of wood was almost identical to the ceramic tile. I filled the small gap with caulk having a color similar to the grout. So far, no problems that I see. I think it looks good.

Ragarding the expansion of wood, I understand that wood expands more perpendicular to the grain that it does along the length of the grain. Since your wood planks (and, thus, grain I assume) are perpendicular to the transition, I would expect expansion to be less of a problem than if the planks were installed parallel to the transition (as are mine).