Q: One visitor asked, "I have a lanolium floor on a sub floor on top of the apenite house flooring, and rug throughout the rest of the house. Do I have to remove the old flooring in the kitchen for the transition to the rest of the house without having to put a subfloor under the area with the rugs to bring it up to level with the kitchen floor or can I use some sort of transition strip? I really don't want to remove the old kitchen floor as there is approximately 400 sq ft in there. If that is the only recourse then away we go then,rip, rip, rip. "

A: Are you planning to remove the carpet (which if I understand correctly, is lower by the thickness of an additional layer of plywood) and install hardwood floors at some point? If so, I wish to remind you that manufacturers do not recommend nor warranty their nail down solid wood hardwood installed on chip board, which you say is the main subfloor in the kitchen. In that case you would have to install at least 3/8 plywood first. At any rate, there are a number of transition strips that will work in your present circumstance. Any flooring distributor should be able to show you a variety of them in wood or metal. It might very well be, depending on how much of a height difference exists, that a near suitable transition strip may have to be slightly altered. But go shopping first. Make sure you know how much the height difference is. There are bevelled reducers. T caps. Dome caps and other reducers that sit on top of the edge of the higher flooring surface and bevel down to the lower floor. Sounds to me that is the sort of thing you are looking for. You are not going to rip out your kitchen floor over a reducer!