Worthy, thank you. No pictures yet as we just have a concrete block bunker at the moment and I doubt I could figure out how to post a picture even if I had one. We are in central coastal Florida and the exterior will indeed be what the builder is calling "old world" stucco painted white. The general idea is that the original owner was a merchant who rose is the world to afford a bigger house and added on rather than building new. Thus we have the "old old" wing of the house with the kitchen, great room and 2 upstairs bedrooms connected by the foyer to the "merchant's addition" that now has the master bedroom and office. This has not been researched for historical accuracy but is sort of a take off on the idea of how the Pennsylvania farmhouse grew with the income and family size of the farmer. Also, when we decided to build I was determined not to plunk another Italianate villa on the landscape. I hope I'm not committing an atrocity against an island style home but this is what the architect came up with.

Thanks for all your responses. 1. I will replace the door casing once I am done dealing with the transition issue. 2. The problem with the transition piece and its resolution depends a lot on whether I can safely remove the piece - I installed it (and the tiles about 8 months ago) so it certainly is firmly seated. So, is it possible to remove it, without doing much damage to the surrounding tiles? 3. If i can remove it, then I want to proceed as follows (please see figure below for directions): . (i) Once I remove the transition piece, I will extend the tile from the bathroom (I still have extras left) by 2" into the doorway (see "A" above). (ii). Note, the laminate planks were not finished evenly either .. "C" is a bit wider (about 1/2", while "D" is a bit tighter, about 1/8". So, I will first straighten the laminate ends by trimming it evenly at the "C" level. (iii) Extend the laminate tiles to cover "B", using a 2.5" horizontal plank. (iv) Alternatively, I will just replace the marble transition strip with a slightly wider one (about 4.5"). (4) But If I am unable to / or it is not advisable to remove the transition strip safely, then, I will even out the gab between the transition, and the laminate tile, and use the caulk as suggested to cover any residual gaps. thanks again and please, let me know your thoughts on my plans thanks - Oyiwaa

You've done a very good job with the situation you've been given. The hardwoods look very close to identical. The only thing I could add to this - and it is ONLY an esthetics suggestion - would be to go 1/2 step darker on the transition strips. Like sewing a seam on a shirt/dress/pants, the ideal is a perfect colour match (thread to cloth). If the match can't be done, a good seamstress will go a snick darker. At a distance it is much harder to see a darker stitch then it is to see a lighter stitch. That is the only thing you could do at this point. And to be clear, the transitions are a pretty good match. If you do anything, the transitions going 1/2 step darker than they are right now would be all I would suggest. Other than that, think of those pieces of wood as the thing that saved you $15K. It's all about how you look at a situation. You can think, "Oh, geeze. I wish I didn't have to have those things there," or you can think "Thank GOODNESS for those transition strips! They saved me $15,000!" Still the same situation - just a different way of looking at it.

I did my wood to tile transition without strips (in order to make my place more handicap-friendly.) They just have to make the top surface of the tile and the top surface of the wood be the same height, I think I have about 1/8th inch difference at most between kitchen and living space, no difference between hallway and bath, and 1/8th difference at most between master and master bath. Back at my old home, I had a transistion strip between the dining area and the kitchen - it made it horrible to move from the linoleum of the kitchen back out to the wood of the dining area when I had a broken ankle and was on wheels. Plus the strips really do look ugly. (PS< the wood transition strips look fine, but mine were metal strips... but neither are necessary.) Others have pointed out you can have hardwood throughout, I just simply didn't want to do that. (Actually, my wood floors are broad beam pine, which is soft, anyway.) My build is semi-open, so I had the option in the kitchen to do tile, and so I did.