Laying Hardwood Flooring

Hardwood Plan Direction With Your Home’s Floorplan

According to SFGate Home Guides, running your floorboards lengthwise away from the door towards the opposite wall, will visually elongate the sight lines and cause your home to appear larger and neater.

Running the planks perpendicular to the entryway can create intimacy in your space.

You may prefer to combine directions for visual interest or to highlight a particular area.

Hardwood Flooring Direction Based on Your Home’s Structure

If your home has a plywood subfloor, we recommend running the floorboards perpendicular to the floor joists. This can reduce the possibility of sagging floors and gapping planks over the course of time.

However, if your design vision requires the planks to run the length of the room, this issue can be addressed by shoring up the subfloor with an additional layer of 3/8” plywood.  If your subfloor is a concrete pad, none of these issues apply to you, and you’re free to choose as you wish.

What About Laying Hardwood Flooring Diagonally?

Installing planks at a 45 degree angle to your room can be a dramatic design statement. And it can be a very practical design trick to fool the eye into seeing a perfectly plum and square room (when it, um, isn’t). If your home doesn’t have perfectly straight walls, a slight, even 10 degree diagonal can help create the illusion those walls are straight as a pin.

Need Help Installing Floors in Your Home? Ask the Experts at Factory Flooring

What type of underlayment should you use? How many inches thick? How do you install it? And how do you avoid damaging your floors in the process? 

When you work with Factory Flooring, you don’t have to worry about these questions. Our team of professional flooring installers will handle all the heavy lifting for you — literally. All you have to do is relax and enjoy the savings on your energy bill. 

Need to get more flooring ideas first? Our design blog has dozens of articles to help you get started. Whenever you’re ready to tackle your insulation project, we’ll be here to help. Contact us online to get started, or call Factory Flooring at 469-583-7053 .