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enter image description hereenter image description hereSo the previous owner installed their own hardwood floors and there are no extra pieces left over. The cuts and installion around the door jambs are awful. There are significant gabs been the jambs and the wood floor. Normally I would place quarter round to hide these kind of things. But because it's at the door frame there is no way to install quarter round.

Is there anyway for me to fix or hide this without getting a whole new wood floor or finding matching wood floors and recutting or refitting?

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    Betcha a case of virtual internet beer that's laminate, not hardwood.
    – Ecnerwal
    Jan 27 at 1:47
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    Is the flooring also applied in a closet or other less-important area? If so, I would borrow some from the front corner to make shims that you can glue into the door gaps.
    – dandavis
    Jan 27 at 3:01
  • Looks to me like the OP has two problems: the (probably laminate, not hardwood) floor not undercutting the door casing, and the floor not being under the actual baseboard. The latter may be fixable by trying to jam/kick that row of boards further under the baseboard. For the former, I'd avoid trying to halfass a molding at the casing. I'd undercut the casing and just get a new—longer—transition piece. Can't be that hard to get a close enough color match with the multitude of laminates out there.
    – Huesmann
    Jan 27 at 12:07
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    FYI, the one real failing here was not fitting the flooring under the casing and jambs. It's not at all easy to get it under the baseboard without removing it, which can cause substantial damage, so it's often considered best practice to install base shoe there.
    – isherwood
    Jan 27 at 14:07
  • Yes, that's a shoddy install, however, if you are not concerned with perfection, then you could try a color matched caulk/grout smoothed out into those voids, which would make it much less noticeable from a distance.
    – Glen Yates
    Jan 27 at 16:05

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Now that we can see what you are talking about, the solution is thicker moulding. That is just a poor flooring install. The correct way to do it is to remove the base moulding, install the flooring (leaving the 3/8" expansion gap), then replace the base moulding to cover the gap.

If you don't want to take the original mouldings off (this installer clearly did not), the customary way is to add a second moulding (usually quarter-round) to close the gap.

Doing a door casing is trickier as you don't usually want to remove it. The correct way is to undercut the casing so you can slide the flooring under it, concealing the gap. The person who installed your floor didn't do that either.

To fix it after the fact, you have two options. You can replace the door casing with something thicker, or caulk that little wedge gap with grey caulk so it isn't so visible.

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    A half measure before new casing is adding deeper plinth blocks. The only problem is that one door having blocks versus all others not having blocks looks strange to people that notice such things.
    – Aloysius Defenestrate
    Jan 27 at 1:32
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    It actually appears that it was undercut, but then the planks were not properly cut to fit under it, from what I see in the pictures. They are partly under some parts.
    – Ecnerwal
    Jan 27 at 1:50
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    Who would notice such things, @AloysiusDefenestrate? twitch... twitch... :D This would be a good opportunity to update the look of the whole room, as it's likely that this was done at other doorways. If, however, this is the only door to the room, two plinth blocks and Bob's your uncle!
    – FreeMan
    Jan 27 at 13:39
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    It would take giant casing of a Craftsman type to cover at the inside corners.
    – isherwood
    Jan 27 at 14:00
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The traditional way to hide the junction between floors and walls is baseboards. If you already have baseboards, installing thicker ones, or "shoe moldings" might be worth considering.

The traditional way to hide floor junctions in a doorway is a wooden threshold piece, cut to fit the door opening. You may need to take a bit off the bottom of the door if there isn't space for this. If there's already a threshold and it doesn't suffice, you may need to take it up and fit a new one.

Or you may have a problem these don't solve. It would be hugely helpful if you edited the question to include photos of the problem areas.

Addition: If you really detest thresholds, you could take a router and chisels and excavate out a pocket that would permit dropping in a new board for a flush fit. But as complexity of the solution goes up, so does cost, effort, or both. Pick yer pisen.

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  • Ick. I would slather it full of putty before I'd deliberately add trip hazards.
    – isherwood
    Jan 26 at 21:09
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    Threshholds are danm near universal in my part of this country. People don't seem to trip over them at all frequently... though if you have an elderly resident who shuffles their feet that could be a concern.
    – keshlam
    Jan 27 at 4:06

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