I refered her to this forum. The metal i advised is similar to what is there, only instead of having the decorative metal showing, the carpet rolls over the metal leaving only a carpet edge showing. I dont recall the name of this metal. It attaches to the floor the same as shown,but the carpet tucks over and in that would leave a carpet to tile transition with no grout joint necessary,as the carpet would be up against and slightly over the tile. She can get this metal fairly inexpensively at any carpet store. I dont know that the big box stores carry it. Does anyone out there know the name of this metal and maybe give her a better description of what i am talking about, or another avenue that she could take? Thanks!

Well, ideally, there should be a nice flush transition between the carpet and tile with nothing in between them, where the carpet is tucked up to the tile, but to do that the carpet needs pulled back, the metal removed, and the pile extending under where the carpet is now, enough so the carpet can be restretched, trimmed, and tucked or rolled and stapled to the tile.

example:

if the tile height is considerably above the carpet height, you can shim up the tacklerss, carpet, and cushion with wood shingles or floorpatch to create a ramp.

Alternately, you can use a marble, stone, or wood threshold piece for a decorative break in the transition.

The least expensive and least aesthetic way to handle it would be to install flat metal over it, but that may not look any better than what you have, or caulk with colored sanded tile caulk to the tap down metal that already is there. Strangely enough, we have many elderly customers who swear by tap down and flat metals and require them to be installed on all transitions in their homes.

Is this a wood or concrete subfloor under the tile ?

If wood, you may have problems with that tile or grout cracking out if you didnt use a ceramic tile underlayment.

the metal you are talking about is z-bar and is certaionly another option, but the tile would have to be extended farther fr the carpet to be long enough to wrap the metal.

Thanks for the name of the metal. Maybe it's a regional thing, but the application i refered to runs the z-bar up to the tile, and the carpet over the z-bar showing no metal, just carpet. The transition does not come out flush using this method, the tile is lower than the carpet similar to her picture.

Hi, and thanks for the responses!

Under the tile is 1/2" plywood. We originally had planned to have tile here (we're the original owners), then changed our minds. Our builder told us we'd be able to put tile down anytime - that the 1/2" plywood would be ok. It wouldn't surprise me if this is something else he was less than honest about. The area with the tile is very small, maybe 4x4. Oh, and I know the pictures don't show it, but the tile is higher than the carpet, but not by a whole lot. There isn't a horrible height difference right now.

If we extend the tile any farther, it will look really weird. Right now the tile/carpet edge is right at the edge of the stairs. So if the tile ran any farther, it would jut out past the stairs. I have a pic hubby took while doing this that might show what I'm trying to describe. Notice where the edge of the stairs is. This entryway extends through the living room to the kitchen, so the only option we'd have for extending the tile would be to extend it all the way, which would look really weird! I think...

{{gwi:1527198}}

So hubby talked to some work friends (weekend warriors) about this today and here's what they suggested. Use a rubber mallet to "pound" the curved metal carpet gripper as flat as possible. Then buy some wooden carpet -> tile transition, the kind with pre-drilled screw holes on top, and just screw the transition down into the subfloor so it "covers" the existing metal stuff, the tile edges, and part of the carpet.

Kind of like this:

{{gwi:1527200}}

*sigh*

Is this salvageable? :( I know we can cover the wall edge with quarter round, but then there's still the issue of what to do with the tile edge that hits against the threshold/door area... Normally I'm picky about aesthetics, but right now I just want this to be done. :(

salvagable how ?

as a quick temorary fix, doing it right, or somewhere in between ?

if all you are looking for is a quick temporary fix, that should work fine although I have no idea for how long since the tile and grout wont last long without cracking or debonding anyways, because its installed over a wood subfloor without a required underlayment for ceramic tile ... not to mention that if you plop something down on the carpet and cusion it may flex over time and can crack the wood threshold. That said they do make topical wood thresholds/transitions you can screw in over top of both ... they are available at most big box ome improvement centers, like this one at Lowes, and these at home depot.

however, if you want to do it right, rip up the tile, scrape the floor smooth, pull back the carpet, isntall ceramic tile underlayment and tile far enough to give you a little bit of carpet to finish off to the tile.

Recommended ceramic tile underlayments include products like:
durock,
wonderboard,
hardibacker,
schluter+ditra.

Like I said, my husband was just going by what our builder told us. Would we still have to lay down underlayment for ceramic tile even though we didn't use ceramic tile? Does it matter that it isn't ceramic?

An underlayment like one of the ones I listed above is required for all granite, marble, stone, slate, ceramic, and any other hard stone-like tile, when installing over a wood subfloor system.

Now if you install a resilient tile or sheet product, one of the above underlayments aren not required, however, depending on the construction and condition of the subfloor you have, it may require a flooring-grade wood underlayment.

If you use a floating wood floor or laminate wood tile/plank, then a laminate/floating-floor underlayment is required.

There are some resilient and rubber products that do not need an underlayment if the existing subfloors condition and constructioon are of suitable quality/condition.