# Forum Home Renovation Flooring  How would you finish this floorboard/tile junction?

## attilazoltan

So this is my first attempt at laying a floating floor. I knew I had to guage the room beforehand to avoid the last row being a skinny sliver of timber. However, Due to the shape of my room I was faced with the position of either having a skinny sliver along the long edge, or a skinny sliver near the door across a 2m length. 
Here is what I am left with after laying the floor. Its the junction between the floor and tiled entrance.     
The gap is 50mm on one end, and 52mm on the other end. The length is about 2m. The tile and floor are cunrrently perfectly level with each other. 
The standard strips I could find at Bunnings were only 25mm or so thick.     
Not sure what to do here. My only idea was to rip up the tiles (2m x 2m square at the entrance to the house. Laid on wooden subfloor).
If I ripped up the tiles, I could guage the new ones to the appropriate size and fix the gap. Problem is new tiles might cost me $250, and the old ones arent that bad.
I do plan on renovating two bathrooms in the near future though, and feel like this could be a good place to learn to tile, with a perfectly flat and square 2 by 2m spot.  
What would you do? Can you think of any other way to fix this 50mm gap? I could put a 40mm wide last row of boards in, but feel like it wouldnt last considering its a floating floor.. 
Thoughts? 
Attila.

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## Gaza

Rip floor board down leave 7mm gap off tiles and Silcone between too   
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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## Renopa

:What he said: ...personally I dislike those metal strips with a passion and ripped them out of this house, previous owners had them everywhere.   I also think it would be a good learning project for tiling...LOL   Depending on which tiles you choose but you should be able to get them much cheaper than $250 (tiles only) have a look for discontinued end-of-line tiles at your friendly tile store or on Gumtree...people who have tiles left over want to get rid of their excess.   
If you've got two bathrooms to do it would be worth buying a tile cutter rather than hire, and sell off once you've finished, again on Gumtree.  Lots of renovators do it this way.   
Good luck with your decision ;-)

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## attilazoltan

Hmm ive never seen silicon joining between tiles and timber. Anyone have any pictures handy? 
Question though, since its a floating floor and nothing is screwed down, I thought that strip nailed into the timber subfloor would sort of hold the floating floor down, stopping it from moving? Or is this not an issue if you silicon the gap between tile and floorboard? Or is the silicon method more used for fixed timber floors rather than floating?

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## phild01

There are joining strips available and I did similar a while back.  Had to go to a floor outlet as bunnings did not have what I needed.  It is a plastic type gripper fixed to the floor and a cover strip that matches the floor colour snaps in.  This allows the floating floor to move with temperature and follows the installation requirements for floating floors.

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## phild01

Like this: Trim Floating Floor Timbertone .825mt Senior Cover Dark I/N 6820126 | Bunnings Warehouse 
Bunnings say to use in conjunction with magic plugs but gave up looking for these.

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## attilazoltan

Problem is these dont cover a 50mm gap. The widest I found was about 30mm at Bunnings.     

> Like this: Trim Floating Floor Timbertone .825mt Senior Cover Dark I/N 6820126 | Bunnings Warehouse 
> Bunnings say to use in conjunction with magic plugs but gave up looking for these.

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## phild01

> Problem is these dont cover a 50mm gap. The widest I found was about 30mm at Bunnings.

  Yes, but the floating floor needs to move so I would make sure this is so.  Would a black border tile edge to existing tiles seem okay with the cover strip?

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## Micky013

Do what Gazza said. Rip a piece and fill the gap with coloured caulking. That's how the pros do it. Dont use those strips it looks sh&t and all the dirt gets trapped around it.

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## attilazoltan

Ill assume rip a piece means cut a row of skinny boards?
So google images showed something like this.   
It does look tidy.
Two questions if I followed this approach:
1) How big should the gap be between tile and floorboard? Still around the standard 7-10mm? 
2) What kind of caulking do I use that allows the floating floor to expand? Something like Selleys No more gap flexible colourful caulk? Selleys No More Gaps Coloured Caulk | Selleys Australia
Just anything that is flexible? 
Is my best bet to do this on the tile/floorboard interface, and for the rest of the room do the standard 10mm gap, covered by skirting boards, and quad pieces where necessary?
Would I caulk/silicon between the skirting boards and floorboards too? Or leave that section open for any movement and just caulk this one edge?      

> Do what Gazza said. Rip a piece and fill the gap with coloured caulking. That's how the pros do it. Dont use those strips it looks sh&t and all the dirt gets trapped around it.

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## heavytrevy

u need to leave 10mm between timber and tile, the gap is filled with cork / not caulk or silicon or sika

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## phild01

Caulking, silicone or polyurethane will allow very little or nothing for movement.  Depends on the size of the floor and temperature stability but the reason for the recommended perimeter gaps is so the flooring doesn't cup.
Suggest you contact the floor supplier for their recommendation.

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## Micky013

You don't need to caulk the walls where skirting will go. 10mm is adequate. I would leave a max of 5mm against the tiles and caulk.  
It's an engineered floor hence movement is not as big of an issue as solid boards. Even with solid boards we leave 5mm against tiles and caulk. It's the only way. It's flexible and waterproof.  
Never ever had an issue with this. You could lay hard up and probably have no issue but best bet is to caulk.

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## NAIL IT

how dark is the floating floor? you should really rip strips of floting floor board then as suggested by another member, fill it withcoloured calk,i have used small amounts of coffe colour, and dark brown, ..liquid nails works a treat on dark flooring also, the colour darkens as it dries, and formsa strong flexible bond, then use a very small "T"strip to fill the gap between the tile and floor...if you cant cut straight

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