How to put vinyl click-together flooring up against cove base tile?

Question

I've got a bathroom project which (among other things) consists of putting in new 5mm click-together plank vinyl flooring.

To fully explain, I need to include the fact that there was some rotten wood flooring around the toilet of which I ripped up a couple layers of the pressed plywood, and am now in the process of trying to shim back up to level, so that I can lay a whole new layer of 5mm underlayment on top of the linoleum, and then the new flooring on top of that.

The issue I have is that bottom half of two of the bathroom walls is tiled, with the bottom row being cove base tile, which has a lip curving out at the bottom, like this: Adding my 5mm underlayment will bring me about even with the top of lip, but then I've got a curve which I'm trying to lay the new flooring up against.

I have two main thoughts on how to handle:

1. Due to how click-together flooring connects, there are "top" lips on two sides of each plank, and "bottom" lips on the other two. The "top" lip appears to fit pretty well over the tile lip (hope that makes sense), and I'm thinking I can throw something like liquid nails in there to fill in the gap, and thus get the flooring up pretty tight against the tile wall. Something like this (excuse my paint skills):

Here's the only problem - in order to stagger the planks, I have to start the next row with a half plank, which means I've cut it and thus it has a straight edge. Is it possible to router / bevel 5mm flooring so that it would fit against the lip??

2. Option 2 is take a cutoff wheel and try to cut the lip off the base tile as straight as possible to get both underlayment and tile to fit underneath.

I'm being told to go for option 2, however I don't think I'll be able to freehand cutoff wheel the tile very cleanly / straight, which means I'll likely have a very jagged edge (and maybe some cracked tiles) that the new flooring may or may not fit under.

Either way, I'm planning on filling in the gap(s) with color matching caulk as best as I can. Quarter round trim is unfortunately ruled out since I can't nail it into the wall (tile), and I guess you're not supposed to nail it down into the new flooring, believe it or not :P

Sorry for the book, any suggestions or ideas are greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

The only proper way to install a floating plank floor is UNDER the wall trim ( or cove base tiles in your case ) so that the expansion gap stays hidden under the trim as it fluctuates with expansion and contraction.

You can :

Remove the tiles and install the floor so it goes nearly up to the wall ( leaving an expansion gap ) that the tiles are mounted on. Since there are tiles above the ones you removed you will need to cut the cove tiles to fit back in place. The danger with this is it may not be possible to get every tile off with out breaking one or more.

OR :

Use a diamond masonry grinder wheel to carefully cut the bottom of the tiles off, install the floor so it goes under them and then use some quarter round or other molding at the transition of the tile and the floor.

Do they still manufacturer the tile ?, if so i would probably remove the cove tiles and then buy the non cove tiles and cut them to fit after the floor is installed and use some molding at the transition.