Flooring

Thresholds cover floorboard edges that end at a door, and serve as a transition element to other flooring materials such as carpet, vinyl, and ceramic tile. Most thresholds are wood, although you also can buy plastic solid-surface versions, similar to solid-surface countertops. No matter what the material is, thresholds serve a decorative as well as a functional purpose in smoothing the way from room to room. Here's how to replace one.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

SKILL SCALE
Easy

TIME REQUIRED
Figure on half an hour to remove a threshold, another hour to install a new one.

TOOLS
Handsaw
Prybar
Tape measure
Nailset

MATERIALS
Threshold
Flooring nails

If the door stops, but not the jambs, are undercut, use a hammer and prybar to remove the nails from the threshold and hammer it out from under the stops.

If the doorjambs were undercut to accommodate the threshold, saw it into two pieces and remove each piece separately.

Before installing a new wood threshold, undercut the doorstops, if necessary, then measure carefully and cut the threshold to length.

Predrill pilot holes and nail the threshold to the floor with flooring, or counterbore the threshold and fasten it with countersunk wood screws.

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