This is tongue and grove hardwood which is being stapled down. We have an unfinished basement and live in the Midwest.

Looks like the two sides won’t align either.

Since it all appears to not have been installed correctly, I would very carefully pry up the flooring and remove staples and start all over. There is no point in trying to continue with a job that isnt right from almost the first row of flooring. Because the installation is poor, one more question. Was this flooring acclimated to your house for several days before installation? If not, it should have been. Of course, I also wouldnt have the installer you had to reinstall either.

If, his starting row is straight. It should line up. The error you are seeing. Is because the boards you dry fit, are shorts and at the wrong angle. You can move the boards left or right to adjust the angle to make the joints aline. Or use longer boards for your dry fit.

i know what you mean. We did redo the dry fit and completely filled that spot in. After numerous measurements again of the room and the flooring, the first row is not straight. Currently from the left side where his first row began all the way down to the last row (43rd board) is 151in. The right side, which is the side we thought looked uneven measured out to be 153.25in. If his line was straight, wouldn’t his first and last row be the same or very close to the same measurement?? Also on the right side there’s very noticeable gaps and cracks in the wood after install. Was wondering if it’s associated with the pressures to fit and line up the boards? Anyhow, right now the floor boards aren’t transitioning into the hallway or kitchen the way it’s supposed to since it’s off by 2.25in. Any ideas on how to remedy the problem? Is ripping out the floors our only option?

If, you're measuring out from a wall. you are inspecting the parallelism. The starting wall and the partition wall may not be parallel to each other. Which is why your installer is indicating that your walls are not square to each other. There is a method to square a room. It is complicated to explain for open floor plan design. You require centerlines and reference points.

Use a string like a chalk line to check for straightness. Inspect the run in front of your slider. Then from your slider to the opposite side of the fireplace. The error would be in one of those two places. Most likely the long run, from the slider pass the fireplace.

If, there is an error. Remove flooring up to where the issue is and re-install.

For unfinished flooring, you can easily restablish a new starting line and back fill it. And it would not be noticeable.

Exactly. I agree . In my prior comment, the walls are actually pretty square. We measured it in front of him and he also measured. This should not result in a difference of inches on the other side of the room. In my last comment about the rows, I did not measure from wall. I measured from his first row to his last. Which like I sd, we all agreed the walls were fairly even and square. So it’s hard for me to understand how a fairly straight room became off by inches and why there are no expansion gaps on one side of the room to a 3/4in gap. Anyways, he finally admitted to not measuring anything when we asked to see and hear his process/explanation for laying down the floors. All he did was decided to start at the left corner of patio door and that was it. Why he choose the shortest wall in my house to start with patio doors and a fireplace in the center?? Idk. He didn’t have explanation. He blamed my walls for not being squared but how did he know if he never measured? He only measured when my husband and I did it in front of him. He did nothing to ensure his line was straight. No chalk line, no markings, laser, nothing. He said, he’s never had to measure his first row to make sure it’s straight. He also said open concept homes can’t have wood floors that align and flow into other rooms. That you’d have to make rip cuts and lay down transition strips between spaces. I’m sorry, I’m not an expert but I know that statement is untrue. You can flow flooring into other rooms regardless if it’s open space or not. Well an update is we let him go. Our issue still stands. The floors as they enter the other rooms do not match up. At this point, it looks like ripping up the floors the only option. This time, will start in our hallway since that’s our longest wall and it connects all the rooms. Will use splines to switch directions and should there be cuts, it’ll be by the walls and not dead smack in the middle of my floors like it would be now.

And yes, the issue after more measuring started after the patio door. That’s where his “expansion gaps” went from zero to 3/4inches by the time he got to the fireplace and up to an inch to the right of it. Of course, he didn’t have a reason for that either. It’s prob beca he didn’t measure and eye balled everything. Thanks for your time and feedback.

I did Brazilian teak on my entire first floor and had to work through this same layout issue with central "core" containing a stairway, bathroom and some cabinetry. What I did, is snapped a chalk line the full length of the first floor from side to side and parallel to the front wall of the house. From there I went all the way back to the back wall and snapped a starter chalk line parallel to (and measured from) the first line by the front. Now I had an accurate starting point. That way when I started laying flooring along the starting line it ended up aligned after I got around that center section and reconnected. No walls are perfectly square (or rarely) and I had a slightly uneven gap along the back wall of the house, but it was easily covered by the 3/4" shoe molding I put down. The only thing you really have to be diligent about is making sure your wood is well seasoned to the inside of your house (should be by now) and make sure you use a block of wood or flooring hammer to make sure your joints are totally tight. If you do happen to be off due to variance in the wood or something it should be so small of a gap that you would never even see it. Unfortunately I agree with previous posters that wrong is wrong and you should carefully pull up what's been done. It's not that hard if you are careful. Best of luck on correcting this issue!

" Best of luck on correcting this issue!"

More than likely finished with the project being as it is well over a year ago.