How to Decide Which Direction to Lay a Wood Floor
Hardwood floors provide a warm look to any interior decorating scheme. But before you begin installing a hardwood floor, you need to decide the direction in which to lay the flooring. There are no hard-and-fast rules, but for the best function and appearance, you should take the floor construction, traffic direction, and coordination with the flooring in other rooms into consideration Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
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Lay the planks at right angles to the floor joists or at a 45 degree angle to the joists, unless the subfloor has been reinforced. Flooring parallel to the joists on a non-reinforced floor will dip down over time.
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Run your hardwood planks in the same direction that traffic moves. If you install flooring perpendicular to traffic flow, it causes a sense of blockage. Flooring generally runs the long way in a hallway, for instance.
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Install the wood floor to run away from the main entrance to a room, rather perpendicular to it. This gives the design openness, as those entering see the wood planks going outward from their line of sight.
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Lay the planks in a room perpendicular to those in a hallway where the room and the hallway meet. This gives a definitive break between the hallway and the room.
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Lay the floorboards to match other floor styles in the house to coordinate looks. This is more important if you can see another area with hardwood flooring from this one and is particularly important if the rooms connect.
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Match the direction of the floorboards with the shape of the room. A rectangular room tends to look better with flooring installed parallel to the longest walls.
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