Laminate Flooring - novice question

[yydelilah]

Hi - I'm about to lay some laminate flooring in my living room.
Along the long side of the room where I plan to start laying the laminate, there is a gas fireplace with a hearth that projects out into the living room by about 40cm and is about 120cm wide. The laminate will obviously go around this hearth.
My question is: do I start laying the laminate where the hearth protrudes into the living room and fill in behind to reach the wall, or at the wall and cut around the laminate hearth (both short ways and length ways) when I get to it?
The first method would mean full-width boards past the hearth but having to scribe in the ones at the wall. The second means I have to scribe-in the "long side" boards around the hearth to go around it, and I'm not sure if that would make the joining of these boards tricky?
Any advice gratefully received.

 

[kbdiy]

I think the decision rests on how best to finish the edge along the hearth and the adjacent walls. If the hearth is reasonably straight and true then it might be easier to run full boards against that and scribe into the walls, especially as you will presumably be covering the board edges at the walls with scotia or skirting boards?

I would try a dry run first as the other factor will be the width of board remaining at the skirting if you start at the hearth. You don't want to end up with a really thin strip against the walls which will make cutting more difficult, so you may end up having to scribe both.

 

[yydelilah]

Thanks for the update - good tips.