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Design Dilemma Flooring

direction of wood floor

Sowmya Swaminathan

6 years ago

Hi installing engineered hardwood 7" planks throughout single story home over concrete floor. Using glue down method and needed advice on direction to run the wood floor. The house is more long than it is deep. The front door opens into a large long open room but this place is not very deep. The longest space is the open kitchen to living room that also is more long than deep.

The typical advice is to run the wood starting perpendicular to the plane of the front door but that is not the longest direction in our house. Would it be too choppy if I ran the wood parallel to the plane of the front door - essentially u will see many lines as u walk into the house , but once u are in, wood will parallel to the longer length

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Comments (5)

Sowmya Swaminathan
Original Author
6 years ago
The picture shows looking in from the front door. There is the wall and the house opens out really long on both sides
suezbell
6 years ago
Might want to rethink gluing flooring ... but the pros will weigh in on that.

If you have a long room and install planks parallel to the long walls, it can make your room look narrower.
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I would go the long way with the hallway and continuous throughout. Having a hallway with the floor the wrong way just looks plain odd. If there is a separate room that is not continuous with that floor, then go the long way with that room. Example, a connecting breezeway with stairs to enter house is longer west to east, but inside the house there is a hallway and room that are longer north to south. You want to go long with the space however it applies. Also the direction you lay LVP does not affect structure, you need a solid base for it anyhow.
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Reconsider the laying direction of main room. Show your layout at three flooring shops for their opinion.
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I believe wood floors are supposed to run perpendicular to the floor joists. It looks like that’s what they are doing and notated in the pictures? Im actually about to run lvp that looks like wood through my entire main floor. I plan to run it all the same direction and so that it goes long ways down the hallway and my kitchen, which is the longest room. I’m keeping it all the same direction so that it can flow without transitions.The only room that it will run short ways is my narrow bathroom. But through most of my rooms it will be perpendicular to most doorways. I never really thought about which direction it ran in regards to the doorway. Most of my rooms are a rectangle shape, so I thought it was more important that the planks went with the length of the room. At least it seems like your rooms are more square so that may not matter as much.
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Can you show us where the doors are on each wall. It is hard to visualize how you access each room. My guts feel right now is that if the laundry has its own room with a door closed and there is no way to walk directly from the leaving room to the hallway, I would put the wood floor the same direction as the hallway. I don't know the dimension of your hallway but you might end-up with many partial planks to fit the angles when you get close to the corners. I also believe that your brain might want to walk the direction the planks are laid out if the space is long and narrow. It think the brain would not have problem with a 0 or 90 or 45 degrees but it might have trouble to deal with other odd angles.
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PRO
Johnson Flooring Co Inc
6 years ago
"If you have a long room and install planks parallel to the long walls, it can make your room look narrower."
I believe this is the opposite of what happens. Picture a hall 3' wide, 15' long. Running wood parallel to the long walls means there's more boards across the width making it look wider. Running them the short way would make the hall look longer. I've noticed the same thing in larger square rooms.

Picking direction is often a compromise. Weigh the pros and cons of each option and determine what the most important areas are to have running the "right" way. Also consider that planks will direct your eye along the length, preferably to something interesting like a nice view or piece of art or furniture.
SJ McCarthy
6 years ago
I always ask the question: "How long will you spend in your doorway? How long will you spend in a hallway?" Now compare that to how long you will spend in a room such as a living room?

A doorway = 1-3 minutes at a time....a few times per day. If we said "15 minutes" per day, that would be GENEROUS. Now how much time do you spend in the living room? A few HOURS per day? Right. That means the LIVING room is more important than the entrance or the hallways.

You are welcome to do a bit of a decorative entrance. Perhaps some wood inlay at the entrance to give the impression of artistic importance while at the same time camouflaging the fact that you are running the rest of the hardwood in the opposite direction of the entrance.

I'm hoping your installer has plans to clean up the concrete slab, test for moisture and deal with any potential problems by using a VERY expensive 3-in-1 adhesive (can be $3/sf just for the glue....wood and labour are extra).
Sowmya Swaminathan
Original Author
6 years ago
You make a very good point. Time spent in hallway and entry is minimal at best. Will definitely get the installer to even out the concrete

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