I am currently putting in a 3/4" hardwood floor between rooms with a large opening between the two and a hallway. I am not sure what you mean. First, the best direction is perpendicular to the floor joists. Let me show you my layout: All are perpendicular to the floor joists on that floor. I should mention that I altered the normal starting point, which is usually an outside wall, because those are usually the straightest walls. In this case, the long wall in the middle and the opening between the two rooms and hallway would be the most visible if the flooring was not straight and parallel. I didn't want to start at the livingroom wall and find that by the time I got to the hall, I was not paralel to the hallway by an inch or more. So I started in the livingroom along the middle wall and worked into the livingroom. I then used a spline to change direction and went down the hallway and started across the kitchen. Because the wood expands in the direction of the tongue, when it swells with humidity it will expand in two directions, from the long wall to the outside livingroom wall and from the middle to the outside kitchen wall. Does that make sense? You really need more information that you gave to get opinions on a flooring layout. Like what what are you using for flooring, are there floor joists underneath and not a cement slab, are the floor joists visible and do you know what direction they go in, what is the straightest wall, are your walls truely parallel, are you doing two adjoining areas, are there any focal points where it will be really obvious if you are out of parallel a little, and where can you best "hide" any imperfections in the structure or your floor? For example, I have baseboard heat along the outside livingroom wall, so that will be cover if the flooring is slightly out of parallel with that wall, and I am going to have cabinets along the outside wall in the kitchen. So the inside wall and hallway were the most important to get RIGHT. Make a simple floor plan like above, mark the direction of your joists and start drawing lines. Know where you are going to start, which direction you are going in and how you are going to get there, where you need/want to change direction and WHY, and how to do it. After you have a preliminary visual plan on paper, get out measuring tools. You need to measure in at least 3-5 place between walls to see if the two walls are parallel, and work out any problems and change your plan if they are not. Go from there. Sue

Is there a door between the hall and the LR, and how wide is the doorway? If the doorway is always open and feels like an extension of the LR I would be inclined to put in HW. But, I can see carpet there if it's a normal doorway. I see no problem with the number of transitions since I have them in my house. My hallway has 3 BR's, bath, linen closets and a furnace/HW heater closet connected to it. All those rooms are carpeted (bath is tiled) and it's never been an issue. Just carry the HW under the door and have your carpet guy roll the carpet edges against the HW. No need for thresholds or transition pieces if done right. If you decide to put HW in the hall, bring out the carpet guy first and have him cut the carpet as he needs it, instead of the demolition crew doing it. I will tell you this about HW in the hall. If you're a light sleeper and the other person is an early riser, you'll hear them everytime they walk down the hallway. If you want it quieter in that area of the house, leave the carpet or be prepared to put down rugs.

Thank you to everyone who has responded so far. There is obviously a clear preference here to keep the hardwoods. Just to clarify a few things: - We can't ditch the dining room, though I understand the sentiment there. Formal or not, our house is small and we don't have an eat-in kitchen so the dining room is the only place we have to eat and, unlike many families, we use it every day. - I agree that the two existing wood floors in the do ing and living rooms could easily be refinished. My concern is the dust, the fumes, the pain of having to be out of the house for days while everything dries. If we did refinish, I would want to find a better, more matte coating than what is on there now. - The wood floors can remain untouched, even if I hate looking st them every day. there is no pressing need to replace or refinish them, other than wanting consistency if we do the other floors. However, not ripping out the carpet and worn kitchen flooring is not an option. Both are so old and dingy (they were here for years before I moved in) that no matter how much I clean, vacuum, or shampoo, it still feels dirty. I can't in good conscience allow a baby to crawl on that, which is the impetus for replacing the floors to begin with.

I'm not sure what LVT is. :) I have an appointment with the flooring person for Saturday to test out samples. Cherie, we hate forced hot air because it bothers my and the kids' asthma and allergies so I am actually very happy about these baseboard radiators as radiant heat is much easier on the lungs since it's not blowing hot air all over the place. There is central air for the summer months. We live in Northern NH... it gets cold here for sure. I am going to keep the tile in the kitchen for now and the rest will be new flooring *all going in the same direction* ! We are ripping out the red carpeting, which is in all four bedrooms as well as on the stairs. We want to replace that with flooring and we don't want yet another type of flooring in the house so it makes sense to do the living and dining room as well. When we reconfigure the kitchen, we'll have to match it up and remove the tile at that time.