How about adding 12mm cork underlay to the hardwood and voila...you have an even height. Even a 6mm cork underlay underneath the hardwood will reduce the 1/2" transition to a more manageable 6mm.

At the end of the day, a height difference like this is dealt with in two ways:

1. Pay the money to get a full floor height raise (this is where 12mm cork comes in SUPER handy) = most professional and most expensive approach.

2. Use a big, fat reducer (should be about 4-6 inches wide) that is specifically milled/stained for this area. This is the cheapest...but it will still be $100+ for the single piece.

Hmm, thanks for the feedback! We actually discussed raising the floor as an option last night. Combined with your comment, I think we are leaning towards that now.

I have never used leveler, but I see most readily-available stuff (e.g. Mapei at Lowe's) says you can pour up to 1-inch at a time. We'd likely do this ourselves and in this manner, raising to something close to what we need. Does this sound reasonable? It is a small office in the house, approximately 140 sq ft - I'm trying to research the quantity of leveler now as I type this. Thanks again!

Cork would be the best option for just one room. Leveler would require 10 - 50lb bags (for 1/2" average topping), a gallon of primer and about a dozen other tools and miscellaneous materials + time and extra hands to help. Self-leveler sounds easy, and it can be, but you can really screw it up.

When putting in that amount of leveler, you have to be VERY aware at how to do it, how quickly and how thick a SINGLE pour is allowed to be (and how thin it is allowed to be). And to be clear, Self Leveling Compound (SLC) is NOT "self leveling". In fact it takes a huge amount of finesse to get it to do what you want it to do.

At $1.19/sf, the cork can be the fastest, cheapest, most installer-friendly option you have.

www.icorkfloor.com

Check to make sure what type of install you are going to do with the hardwood. Cork can work with a floating hardwood and a glue down hardwood. No staples/cleats/nails.

Okay, I think you have all convinced me to not create my own weekend from hell (by trying to pour leveling compound with just two adults ... and two kids under the age of five). Thanks for this! We have the hardwood on hand, and were already planning on a floating installation as it's recommended for the product (no nailing).

So if we now switch and go the cork path - say with that 12mm option from the website you mentioned - that leaves me with a few questions:

(1) My previous calculation - indicating the top of the hardwood surface would be almost half an inch lower than the top of the adjacent tile surface - had built into it using 3mm PergoMax underlayment (the "gold" stuff). Would I still use this stuff, on top of the cork and underneath the hardwood? I'm guessing no.

(2) Perhaps tied in with the first question, I see that thinset is used to adhere the cork to the concrete. Is this correct? This will (obviously) add some thickness to the whole equation. I'm thinking now that - by removing the PergoMax stuff (-3mm) and adding thinset (guessing, +2mm) - it's pretty much a draw, which I then just float the hardwood on. Am I thinking of all of this correctly?

Thanks again for all of your help. You are all much appreciated.

I take back the adhesive question ... the iCork Floor website says to do to the cork, whatever was to be done to the flooring above it (floating installation w/o adhesive, in this case). The question remains, then, as to whether or not I sandwich in the other stuff (e.g. PergoMax). I think I'm about to pull the trigger on a couple boxes of the 12 mm from that site. Suddenly this project doesn't seem to be expanding in complexity anymore - thanks again!

Yes, float the underlay if you are floating your wood floor, no need for the additional PergoMax underlayment - you may consider performing a moisture test on your concrete floor before installing any underlayment or floor covering and depending on the results, apply the appropriate vapor membrane (liquid roll-on or sheet) based on the test results. Your supplier can help you out on that part.

To my corky friends - thanks so much! Installed a half inch of cork and laid the engineered hardwood over top. It came out great, and the acoustics are noticeable as well. Thanks again.

Next stop, I'm making a custom transition. I'm just not thrilled by the normal offerings from Lowe's.

I am interested in how this worked out for you. We have a similar issue (slatillo tile and carpet), but we'd like to put in LVP in place of the carpet. Also, some LVP (probably most now) come with a backing and I am wondering if that would be an issue if we used cork under that type of LVP.