The way my house is oriented is the main living room opens to the dining room area, similar sized rooms that share the same main wall, but have a large 5' opening between the 2. Looking at my lame description below of how it looks I plan to start laying the floor against the wall on the top left side, going up and down and across to the right, BUT once I get to the opening of the two rooms how do I fill in the other side behind the separating wall without messing it up? I hope this makes sense.

Can I just start doing the living room and then come through the opening and once I have a long enough section I just go back or back fill to the left?


|******************|
|******************|
|******************| <living room
|******************|
|******************|
|______******______|
|*****************************
|*****************************
|***************************** <dining room/open room
|*****************************
|*****************************


Edit - better diagram

opps, double post

Sorry, I misunderstood your question .

Thanks Jerry, but my floors will be layed the opposite direction through the opening.

If the flooring will run perpendicular to the opening I would start at the opening and work both ways.

-First off how do I staple on the female side of the planks when I go backwards towards the wall?

-Second, is there a suggested way of starting in the middle of the opening so that I end at the left wall with the proper expansion gap?

When reversing directions insert splines into the groove to make a tongue.

Pick a preliminary starting point and then do some measuring both ways... then adjust your starter row so you don't end up with too small a board on 1 end.