wide plank doorway thresholds

[Chris Friesen]

I'm redoing the flooring (pulling up carpet and nailing down prefinished 3 1/4" solid strips) in multiple rooms that adjoin a common landing, as well as the landing itself and a short stairway up to the landing. There are five doorways, three of them are parallel to the direction of the flooring, and two are perpendicular. The photo below is taken at the top of the stairs, and there is another doorway off to the right.

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I've started with one of the rooms that will have a perpendicular doorway (the one with the nailer visible), and I'm to the point where I either need to either delay doing the door area until the landing is ready (if I want to run strips straight through the doorway), or else use some perpendicular pieces in the doorway.

If I go perpendicular, I'm thinking that going perpendicular in just one or two doorways might look odd since the floor will flow through the others. Am I getting too worried here?

Alternately, I've been thinking about putting single-piece 4 1/2" wide planks in each doorway. This would give the perpendicular threshold to nicely finish of the starting room, while providing a visual theme tying all the doorways together (and which could possibly be continued along the edge of the landing where it meets the stairs).

I'd have to mill and finish the doorway planks myself, but that's not a problem.

What do you guys think?

[Neal Clayton]

well, you can add thresholds to the others later if you must. nail down some scrap wood guide rails and rout out 3/8 deep through the floor, plane a board down to 3/8 thick, stick it in the hole you routed, and toe nail in either direction. i've done this in my house to fix gaps between boards under doors that previously had no threshold. as long as you remove the door/frame and extend the threshold behind the doorframe no one will ever be the wiser.

so even if you change your mind later, all is not lost ;).

but if i were doing it with new flooring, i'd go ahead and put a threshold under every door. if you do one, you should do them all, imo.