Direction Of Laminate Wood Flooring

Laying down laminate for hallway to bedroom transition.

Direction of laminate wood flooring.

Installing in a certain direction can help bring out textures and colors. When laying laminate flooring board direction is more of an aesthetic issue and less a structural one as it can be when laying a hardwood. Wood floors should always be laid perpendicular to floor joists across rather that in between them. This will make the floors structurally sound and will help prevent the planks from separating sagging or buckling.

The direction that your wood flooring will run is not just a matter of personal taste. If the room is not overly small floorboards that are placed vertically will work just fine. Follow these guidelines and you should be able to decide the appropriate direction. Apart from a few exceptions like sagging joists this is the preferred direction to lay wood floors because it provides the best result aesthetically.

So there is no right or wrong way to lay your wood flooring. While personal preference is a factor the direction in which you run hardwood flooring boards is governed by visual and structural guidelines. The most common way to lay install hardwood flooring is by aligning the planks parallel to the longest wall or run in the installation. Yet another exception if you have solid wood floors not engineered on a pier and beam foundation then you don t have a lot of choice as far as which direction to run the flooring it would best be run perpendicular to the joists.

Just remember to visualize and take into consideration all aspects of your laminate flooring and space. The wood planks that make up your new wood flooring should be laid out in a manner that leads to the center or focus of the room. The correct direction for laying hardwood floors. Today we have options such as laminate flooring and engineered wood floors which don t expand dominantly in any one direction so there really is no need to stick with any one direction.

If the room is wider than it is long laying the flooring on the vertical will help create the illusion of length in the room and balance it out. Vertical flooring is the most common orientation for wood floors. We have mostly slab foundations in this area and with engineered floors you have more flexibility.