Installing Kitchen Threshold Moulding

I have a certain affinity for threshold moulding. I am not sure why. I think because maybe the first time I put some in, it looked good. Maybe it’s because I got lucky and matched the color stain I picked out to the floor…the first time. Who knows, but I do.

Anyway, today was the day to install the threshold moulding for the kitchen entryways. There are two of them, one about 30″ wide and the other about 70″ wide.

Yesterday, I picked up two oak threshhold mouldings from Lowe’s. They were about $10 and $22, respectively. I thought that was a little expensive, but who am I?

Today, I cut them to their proper lengths and drilled holes in them for the screws. I have to use screws this time because the tile is already installed. I really didn’t feel like smacking large finishing nails into the floor about an inch away from the new tile. That’s all I would need…me hitting the tile with the hammer or the vibration from the impact of the hammer hitting the nail head loosening the tile. Geeesh.

There were some extra steps I had to take to install this moulding. First, I had to cut a slice off it. This moulding is tapered on both sides, with about a quarter inch step on the edges. Since we installed half inch cement board, instead of the quarter inch stuff, the floor is a bit higher than it would’ve been. I had to take that into consideration with this moulding. I cut about three-quarters of an inch off of the whole length of the board, so the edge would sit flush with the tile.

Also, I had to drill holes through the moulding, so the screws could slide through. That was easy. The hard part (which I learned during the bathroom install) was to drill out a tad bit more with a larger drill bit, to countersink the screws, so they lay flush with the moulding. I did this with a little tool I made.

I grabbed a scrap piece of windowsill that I just cut. I put the drill bit that I was going to use, in the gun. I measured exactly how long the scrap piece of wood should be if I wanted the drill bit to stick out just enough for a tapered countersink hole in another piece of wood. Then, I cut the scrap wood to that length. See the photo above. To drill the holes, I just kept the bit through the scrap wood and went around drilling where the screws were going to go.

The tool worked perfectly. I stained, polyurethaned and waited for the moulding to dry. Then, I screwed it down to the floor.

Everything worked out just grand.