Help aligning wood floor direction

10 years ago

Hi all, first time poster to a wonderful site and was hoping to draw on everyone's expertise and kindness. We just bought a home and are redoing the wood floor on the first floor. We will be using 5" width planks of varying length and would love some thoughts on the direction of the flooring. I've attached a diagram which I think will be helpful for some.

My thought is to run the floor vertically in the hallway, to not chop the boards too short . But I would run the remaining floors perpendicularly so that the boards are again running parallel to the long dimension. The diagram has arrows showing the orientation of the floors.

Some additional notes:
1) there are step drop offs from the dining nook to the family room, the dining room to the living room and the foyer to the living room
2) where the hallway hits the kitchen (i.e. where there is change of direction), I'd put a molding strip

Thank you in advance and look forward to the responses!
Carl

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (5)

gregmills_gw
10 years ago
Looks good. Only question is, is your house on concrete slab or are you laying over joists?

Rule of thumb is to lay wood across joists.
For structural support.

Concrete slab you can go any direction you wish.
pgersb
10 years ago
This looks good. Any of the other options won't work as well. I think it's smart to lay the hallway this way.
Related Professionals
Banning Flooring Contractors · Bend Flooring Contractors · Bothell Flooring Contractors · Chicago Flooring Contractors · Highlands Ranch Flooring Contractors · Oakdale Flooring Contractors · Palestine Flooring Contractors · San Carlos Flooring Contractors · San Ramon Flooring Contractors · Enumclaw General Contractors · Klamath Falls General Contractors · Lincoln General Contractors · Orangevale General Contractors · Statesboro General Contractors · Austintown General Contractors
MiaOKC
10 years ago
If I understand correctly, the middle part of your drawing (foyer, hall, dining nook and kitchen) are all raised up and the outlying areas are all a step down. I would be tempted to run the wood on the raised area all the same direction, following what you have in the hallway and foyer through to the kitchen and nook. Then, in the step down areas, the wood would run at a 90 degree angle. It looks like that would truly orient towards the "long direction" of the nook and kitchen if this drawing is pretty well scaled, and would make the flow of the hall into kitchen seem more seamless and make it feel "bigger." That said, I did have the HWF in my own house make turns at the same level - I had an entry hall like you, and then another hall intersected it at a 90 degree angle in a T shape split and I had the wood meet abutted. We had a darker stain that unified the whole floor, so it didn't make it feel choppy or small. Just my two cents!

Good luck, please post pics when you are done!
CaliforniaCarl
Original Author
10 years ago
Thanks all! It's our first Reno, so very nervewracking. We won't lay looks until jan but will be ure to post pics
glennsfc
10 years ago
Your drawing is the way I'd do it. Just install landing tread (nosing) at the step downs. If you are doing this yourself, take all the time you need, study problems from all angles and plan everything to give as much of a preview of where everything will fall, so you have attractive results at the step down sites.