Where to start laying a wooden floor in a wonky room

[radgar]

I'm tempted to have a go at laying some wooden flooring in my living room.

I understand I should start on the longest uninterrupted wall. OK, the closest I have to that is one with a door at one end. However, on the opposite wall I have a fireplace with a stone hearth extending into the room. The Victorian walls are not parallel . If I start on the longest wall then the slight diagonal will be very visible at the fireplace. Should I start on the fireplace side? And if I did, should I mark out a line from the front of the fireplace and start as if I were starting from the middle of the room, filling in the sides of the fireplace to create a long edge to continue to the other wall?

Thanks.

 

[crazydaze]

You should lay the boards 'straight' to the doorway that you enter the room, then start at the wall of your choice, scribing the first row so that it is 'wonky' with the wall but the side joints are straight with the direction you wish to line up in the doorway.

Almost every wood floor install will be 'wonky' at all 4 walls, very few if any room has perfectly straight walls.

 

[Floorsave]

Hi,

When wood fitters lay a hallway and living room they would normally start in the hallway and then go into the room. So I would start at the longest wall where the doorway is.

I would set out using a plumb line .The plumb line should be measured taking into account that the flooring should be straight, next to the fireplace.

The easiest way to check that you are going to be straight is to open up some packs and lay them loosely together to see how they will hit the fireplace. Also, make sure that you do not end up with a sliver of wood on the adjacent walls to the wall you are starting from or by the fireplace itself.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Hi,

When wood fitters lay a hallway and living room they would normally start in the hallway and then go into the room.

Well, we're floor fitters and we wouldn't.

A: treat every room as a separate entity, there will be a different climate in the hallway than in the living room
B: the fire place is the focus point

We would start right in front of the fire place with a board long enough to avoid having a joint there. Then, as the OP suggested him/herself, continue into the room and fill in behind it later.

 

[TheVictorian]

My dining room is rectangular with the fire in the middle of the narrowest wall, would you run the boards lengthways or widthways in this situation?

 

[WoodYouLike]

That depends on the length of the room too. If almost square it does not matter, if really rectangular - say 3 by 6 - it would look odd if the boards run parallel with the shortest wall.

 

[TheVictorian]

It's pretty rectangular so I'll go lengthways - 5.3m x 3.7m

Many thanks and sorry for hijacking!

 

[radgar]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try a dry run to the halfway mark and see how it looks. That should also help mix up the boards a bit from the different packs. At least the boards should be acclimatised after 4 months in the room