Wood – Where to start laying hardwood floor in “T” shaped room

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I'm getting ready to put down hardwood in a newly constructed room. The room is "T" shaped as such:

I understand that I should start on the longest continuous wall and work across. However, in this case, if I start on "A" for example, and then fill-in between D and A, it seems likely I'll end up with a partial piece in the middle of the floor.

Should I start at D instead, and have the possibility of a partial piece all the way down the A wall? Is there some other way that I should approach this?

Thank you for your help.

Edit: Some additional info:

The room is about 22' the long dimension and 14' on the short. Planks are 3" wide. D is the top of a stairwell, and C is a closet.

Best Answer

Say you start with your piece running parallel to A. You take it from the bottom left corner all the way up to the F wall. Solid piece, all the way up.

Now you backfill to the left of the piece, working towards D. When you reach D, you will probably need to do a rip cut for the last piece to go in D.

You'll cross the room from A to B also putting in full pieces until you hit B at which point you'll probably need to do some kind of rip there as well.

Here's the only really tricky bit - where B meets the wall that links to C you'll have to do a partial rip cut. Your rip should let you fit the piece in at B but where the space to C is, you want the full piece.

Related Solutions

Wood – Where should I start laying nail down hardwood flooring and how to make it straight

First, remember to lay your wood perpendicular to the floor joists. Laying it parallel can cause a waving effect which is unpleasant.

Next, find the longest, longest, straightest wall which is perpendicular to the joists. Measure out two feet from the wall all the way down the wall. Then find the best line down these marks, snap a chalk line, Measure back to the wall about 23 and 5/8 inches. Snap a this line. Line up your first run of floor against this line, tongue side out (nail through the tongue).

As for room to room, if they are really out of square with each other, try building a transition between rooms:

----||----
----||----
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This allows you to lay each room separately, allowing each room to be square.

Wood – Do I really need an expansion gap around the entire hardwood floor

Yes you need to keep expansion room at the walls for the flooring to move. Particularly at the walls that meet the long sides of the flooring, this is where the movement really occurs. In your picture you have the end grain of a piece meeting your transition strip. That will be no concern for movement there, although I would still get a small gap, minimally an 1/8", most certainly not tight, since the wood does move albeit slightly, in its length. That mainly depends on how much "grain runoff" is in any one piece of flooring, an 1/8" should cover it though. This gap at the wood floor/tile junction is caulked with a flexible caulk, something like, but I am not stuck on the Dap 230 in a compatible color of the grout in the tile floor. You are not done yet. Before ANY caulk is done, the joint area is carefully taped off so nothing gets on the adjacent finished surfaces. The caulk is set in place and wiped down to a clean WET joint. while it is wet have the grout on hand that was used to grout the joints in your tile floor and lightly dust the wet caulk so it dries into the caulk. This will give the caulk that varied natural look of grout, instead of the monocolor that caulk alone can't do. Peel the tape immediately after dusting and let dry, then vacuum the excess dust, the rest will remain.

You may decide to use a ready made color matched sanded caulk, that may work, but I have removed this type of caulk before and it is not as flexible as the "230" I mentioned before. No I am not an affiliate of DAP, I just know what works.... enter image description here

Best Answer

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Wood – Where should I start laying nail down hardwood flooring and how to make it straight

Wood – Do I really need an expansion gap around the entire hardwood floor

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