Don't know exactly what the affected area looks like....but I wouldn't
touch the thresholds unless absolutely necessary! I recently finished
a similar job...approx. 400 sq ft of 3/4" hardwood.

However, the front door has a small enclosed
mud-room/foyer/whatever-you-want-to-call-it-in-your-region. Due to
the grit that comes in, we decided to do that section in ceramic tile.
It has worked very well....

For the back door, we were going to run hardwood all the way up to the
door. After careful consideration, we decided instead to place a
small ceramic floor in that area (a 2' x 3' rectangle). This section
was 'picture framed' by 3 pieces of hardwood....I must say, it looks
very sharp.

As a bonus, anyone entering from the back door doesn't need to step on
the hardwood with dirty/gritty shoes. We are very happy with the end
result. Originally, I thought we couldn't install tile due to the
lack of rigidity in our subfloor (5/8" ply directly over joists).
However, I found a product that (when installed correctly) is
warranted to prevent any tiles from cracking. It's called
Schluter-Ditra, and it's expensive ($2 sq ft in my area). But it will
result in a floor that's slightly lower than your hardwood (I'd guess
1/4"). In my situation, vertical clearance was not an issue, so we
adjusted the ceramic to be flush with the hardwood.

Alternately, just don't run your hardwood all the way up to the
threshold...and use some (small) molding to cover the gap. You may
have to cut/scribe it to fit under the lip of the threshold. After
all, the 1/2" gap is a minimum requirement, so it's ok to have a 3/4"
gap between hardwood and threshold.

BTW....if you have 1/2" sheetrock walls, you should be able to install
your hardwood with virtually no gap between the hardwood and the plane
of the wall. The sheetrock should not go all the way down to the
floor, which should automatically leave 1/2" gap between the hardwood
and the bottom plate. If the sheetrock is low, just cut back (up)
until you've got 3/4" of vertical space. When you place baseboards
back on the wall, there should be very few places where a gap is
showing.

Where gaps *do* show, I would use a little 'trick'. Take a small
piece of cardboard (from the hardwood flooring box, naturally) and
placed it behind the lower part of the baseboard. This will likely
push the bottom of the molding out far enough to cover any remaining
gap. I dislike the idea of adding an extra quarter-round or scotia
molding on top of the baseboard.....I think it detracts from the
overall look.

Have fun!
Dave



"Larry" wrote in message hlink.net...
Just completed (or almost completed) putting down 400 sq ft of 3/4" hardwood
floors.

The problem is around the front and rear door. In order to leave the 1/2"
for expansion that the manuf recommends, I need to be able to run the wood
under the threshold. On the back door I could raise the threshold to
accommodate this but on the side facing out it will just be 3/4" above
everything else and leave a gap!!!

On the front door I can't figure out how to raise the threshold at all.
Even if I could I would need a shorter door and that's hard to do with a
firewall type of door.

I handled this installation pretty well up until this point. Any
suggestions?? Thanks in advance.