jerry_t, thanks for letting me know. I have a concrete sub-floor so there will be no plywood to nail or glue the floor down to. I am thinking of making the floor long ways when one walks in the door so when the cabinets are put back on the floor and the little bit of walk way between the cabinets and my desk will have long boards and not many horizontal busy looking boards. This has been such a tough decision for me since I actually fell in love with the Bruce Park Avenue Pradoo Laminate, the BR-111 Brazilian Cherry Triangulo Engineered and the BR-111 Amendoim Triangulo Engineered and could not make up my mind. I hope I am not making a mistake since I know Brazilian Cherry darkens dramatically but I love the coloring of the red tones.

Oops, sorry - I should have mentioned that we have a slab foundation. Here's the link: www.truehardwoods.com If you call and talk to Justin (it's a family-owned and run business), tell him hello from the customer that bought 70 cartons of Castle Rock Birch shipped to Texas! We're installing it ourselves, so we decided to do floating. He recommended we use the Silencer underlayment.

You can add another 3/4" plywood for a total of 1.5" of total subfloor thickness. With a total thickness of 1.5", you can pretty much do as you like. The deflection rating of the floor is determined by 2 things: Distance between joists (measured "at centre" to keep things simple) 2. Total thickness of subfloor elements A proper subfloor is at least 2 layers. If you have a single layer of subfloor/underlay, then you probably have to lay new plywood anyway. You might as well "go big" so that you can have the floor installed in any direction you fancy. Assuming you have calculated the final deflection rating (you need to know the distance between joists "at centre") to achieve the right rigidity, you can run those planks in a circle if you like. And just for fun, make sure you are well equipped to deal with 8" wide planks. Anything over 5" wide require gluing as well as metal fasteners (assuming this is solid wood). And that's where the second layer of subfloor comes in handy. It makes it easier to deal with if that floor ever has to be ripped out (hopefully in 80 - 100 years from now).

I'd definitely lay the floor so that it makes the living/dining area look as large as possible. After that, it's a coin toss for the other areas. Are you getting a laminate that has water resistant seams? That type of flooring is notorious for swelling if the seams get wet. Since it's a rental, I'd want extra durable flooring since folks often are harder on rentals than on something they own themselves. Pictures of laminate in halls, installed both the long way and the short way.