Real wood flooring - lay in which direction?

[brettjbuckley]

Our lounge and dining room join via a large opening which gives the impression of havung one large room. Therefore we want a continuous floor surface to emphasise this.

The floorboards run lengthways from the lounge through into the dining room.

We have considered running real wood flooring in the same direction. However, all advice tells us to run it in the opposite direction to the floorboards, but we feel that this will look odd.

What will happen if we do it the same way as the floorboards?

 

[WoodYouLike]

That would look odd indeed.
Best solution is to install 3mm hardboard sheets first, so any draft from going the same direction as the original floorabards and slight hight differences (not level floorboards) will be fairly reduced.

 

[dazlight]

Well if you are having real wood flooring I take it you mean solid wood? If that’s the case it needs fixing down so you will have to plywood the areas then glue the flooring down so you can lay it length ways then.

 

[conny]

I would go for a plywood sub-base rather than hardboard. 6mm ply as a minimum but 9mm would be better.
You will probably need to adjust your door clearances anyway, so go for the thicker size for more stability.

You could consider running the boards diagonally to try and avoid any 'potential' problems if they ran in the same direction as the original boards.

Many years ago I ran engineered boards from my front door in the hall all the way through to my conservatory garden door. It ran from the hall front door, through into the lounge and continued out into the conservatory with no door plates etc. The hall boards ran in the same direction as the original floorboards, the lounge ran at right angles to the original boards and the conservatory was a concrete floor. It was over 5 years later when I sold the house and they were still looking good with no lifting/warping or gaps.

 

[foxhole]

If you want to lay same direction take up original .?