After several years of "talking" about it, we finally purchased some Bruce 3/4" x 3 1/4" solid hardwood flooring for our living room, dining room and a hallway.

Our house was built in 1959 with flooring that consists of 2x10 joists spaced 16" O.C. A 1x8 Douglas Fir sub floor is ran diagonal to the joists with a 5/8" Douglas Fir plywood layer on top of the 1x8s. Will we be able to install 3/4" x 3.25" oak hardwood parallel to the joists?

That's a stout subfloor, (They should build um like that now). IMO it would be o.k to run parallel.

Thanks for the reply Floorologist. I assumed it would be fine with my sub floor. Now on to the installation question, aesthetically, should we run the floor east to west (parallel to the joists) or north and south?

In the below pic, the dining room, living room and hallway areas will get hardwood. Joists run east to west in the house (up and down in relation to the pic). The main entries are either from the foyer, kitchen (both on the north side) or sliding glass door (9' of glass) on the east side of the dining room. My only "uninterrupted" exterior wall is at the bottom of the pic where the sliding glass door is located. We will get a lot of morning light through the 9' slider on the east and even more light on the west side with 7' windows flanking either side of the hearth in the evening.

My wife thinks it would look best to run the hardwood east to west or parallel with the joists. I "think" I agree with her but i am worried about the size of the living room and the necessary expansion gap considering the foyer is tile. I don't want to use any "stock" transitions if it can be avoided. I would prefer to make something myself so it doesn't look like an after thought. Given the width of the living room (29') will a 3/4" expansion gap at each end be enough? The hall way area will definitely run east to west.

The house is a "ranch" style home with a full, unfinished basement. It has dual zone heat and a/c including a whole house humidifier so the basement is both temp and humidity controlled year round.



*edited for a larger pic

most floors due to the fact that they need to run perp. to the joist will run with the long dimension of the room since the joist typically will run the shortest span. Anyway I think it will look better running the length of the room but keep in mind ive never been in the house and i dont have to live with it either. Structurally it doesnt matter because you have over an inch of subfloor. I also have noticed when floors run perp. to the light source they tend to show seasonal movement more readily. floors change more in width than in length fyi. You layout is pretty much a 30 x 30 square so its 6 ways to half a dozen. If all else fails racking out a few boxes in each direction may help with those visually challenging decisions.