setting up long runs of hardwood flooring: where to square from?

Question

So I have a 3 bedroom house, middle room being the smallest. The master is the widest covering the width of the house, and the 3rd room at the back is long and 2/3 the width of the master.

I am doing the install one room at a time as there's stuff I have to move around to make room. Currently I occupy the master with furniture etc.

I would like to set up long runs of wood that span the length of the house, going from master all the way to the back end of the 3rd bedroom. I'm also going to run a piece of flooring centered across the bottom of the door to break up the rooms and divide the floor, but keeping the long run. The middle room steps out into the middle of the hall. offset right and across the door is the bathroom, offset left is the stairs down.

So here is the issue I'm attempting to plan around. I'm trying to get the runs parallel to the hallway so it's straight. It also has to be parallel to the door opening to the middle room, this might turn my install a few degrees in the room, which is fine. What I'm having trouble with is carrying the run into the master and into the 3rd bedroom. I've pushed out a parallel guideline into the hallway from the middle room transition, using this as an anchor as best I can that will be parallel to the door when it's closed. This guideline seems to match the nose for the stairs. It extends into the master where the entrance steps into the right side of the room. From my line to the right wall I have maybe 1/2 inch out of square for a room that's about 12 feet wide. measuring the left wall corners off my guide, I find I'm only about 1/4 inch off from one corner to the other off the far left wall. That's very tolerable, though could be better, but it's a 30 year old house, I expect rooms not to be square. They aren't. So I'm very willing to take 1/2 out.

Here's where things go south. Using my laser square, I project the guideline into the 3rd bedroom. To one wall, I believe I might be 1/2 out. Which is not bad, but I can also hide it since the closets are on that side and I can hide that under the sliding door tracks. Where I will make the transition into the closets.

The problem is the other wall, over 11 ft it's almost a whole inch off.

My boards are 3 1/4" wide, and 1 inch over a run of 11 ft is going to be very noticeable. I won't be able to hide that under molding, in fact the shoe mold might make it look worse.

Should I run with this and chalk it up to the house not being square, or is there a better way to approach this measurement? I'm thinking I could put a screw into the sub floor of the master and run a string all the way to the back of the house and try and measure perfect square from that, but I might run into an issue where the transition on the middle room will no longer be straight across the door frame.

Jack · Answer

If flooring is to run into all room eventually and it is a wood floor, start on your longest wall which is usually in the hallway leading to the bedrooms (a sketch would have really helped on this). if the rooms off of the hallway or out of square, the adjustment can be made at the door where the wood floor is the shortest, by tapering that joint in the door by 1/8" in a 32" joint will change the lay of the floor going into the bedroom by a 1/2" in a 10' room. More adjustment can be made by setting the nails harder on one side of the room compared to the other. I have used that technique in "steering" the floor over a long run after the rows are well established.

Any room that the flooring runs into can be adjusted slightly as well without seeing a noticeable curve in the floor. I also have done so much as slightly tapering flooring to aid in "adjusting" the floor going into a room.

user63682 · Answer

nothing left to do but to believe my measurements are good.

Worse comes to worse I will taper a cut at the door to meet the threshold piece that will be the base of the runs into the hallway. This set of measurements if they are right are only off 1/2 inch tops in the other 2 rooms, but this room was then sacrificed a bit. The back wall is about 3/4 of an inch out. I ended up splitting a run to offset the back wall so a seam didn't cut out from under the trim. As a result I'll need to rip a 2 inch strip to finish the room at the door.

The table saw scares me, but I managed to clamp a bunch of pieces together into a jig and ran the pieces through using the clamp as a push rod, in addition to a push rod pushing down. I was able to rip the 3 1/4 down to 2" and then ran the pieces through again on the edges nibbling away until I had a new groove. I hope I don't have to do that again, though with so little blade exposure and pushrods up the wazoo, I felt reasonably safe doing that.

Keeping the faith that my measurements are still good. I might have been thrown off a tiny bit, nothing to do now but to carry on and deal with the ugly seams at the end of the other 2 bedrooms if they show up. At least the view down front to back of the house will be straight.

JP4 · Answer

I was doing a single room and it was out of quart a good bit and the wide plank engineered wood had beveled edges.

I was also going to end up with a thin plank at the last row. So I trimmed my first row to split the difference.  I think I may tapered the first row as well to split the difference with tapered/out of square room on the other side.

It was so.much fun!!

user63682 · Answer

the table saw scares me lol. But I managed to clamp a bunch of pieces together into a jig and ran the pieces through using the clamp as a push rod, in addition to a push rod pushing down. I was able to rip the 3 1/4 down to 2" and then ran the pieces through again on the edges nibbling away until I had a new groove. I hope I don't have to do that again, though with so little blade exposure and pushrods up the wazoo, I felt reasonably safe doing that.

keeping the faith that my measurements are still good. I might have been thrown off a tiny bit, nothing to do now but to carry on and deal with the ugly seams at the end of the other 2 bedrooms if they show up. At least the view down front to back of the house will be straight. lol.

setting up long runs of hardwood flooring: where to square from?

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