The first floor of my house is mostly one large open area. About half of it is 3/4" hardwood (2.25" wide of what I believe to be Oak) and the rest is 20 year old carpet that needs to go. Currently, the carpet is in the living room and dining room, which share borders with the hall/foyer and kitchen respectively. The carpet is segregated via the hardwood in both borders with a beveled transition piece.

Living Room & Foyer:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kb5p ... 182645.jpg

Dining Room & Kitchen:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3a_j ... 182653.jpg

Not to scale, partial layout of first floor:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-UpzY ... /floor.png

Since this is basically one large room, I'm somewhat befuddled on what to do. From talking to others, "extending" the existing floor isn't as easy as it sounds and will likely end up sticking out like a sore thumb.

My next plan was to find an unfinished product with similar grain and then lay perpendicular to the existing floor in the living room. This would have the added benefit of keeping the new floor running parallel to the living room's longest wall, and then run at a 45 degree angle in the dining room. I thought having the grain run in different directions in the living room and dining room would help visually separate them. Furthermore, this would allow me to start running the new floor in each room starting against the existing floor (I realize this isn't the "right" way), and thereby avoid the possibility of having to rip a narrow trim piece to join the old floor to the new, as may have happened if I started against the far wall. I was then going to contract someone to come in and sand/stain both the old and new floors.

So that was my plan, until I started reading more and found out that running parallel to the floor joists (or trusses in my case) can cause problems. My subfloor is 3/4" plywood and my trusses are 24" OC:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-hET- ... 232044.jpg

From what I've read, the truss spacing is a non-starter for running parallel, as would be the case in my living room. Now, I do have access to the underside of the floor (crawlspace). I've read that one option is blocking, but that sounds like it may be a lot of work (and a lot of crouching). I'm not sure exactly what it entails, so I may be wrong here. Unfortunately, I can't just add another layer of plywood since that would raise the floor in my new area above the old.

Another thing I was thinking was run parallel with the existing floor and then intentionally stagger/offset the seams when butting up or even go with a wider board. Or maybe go with a border/inlay product with a decorative design that is at least 8" wide. That seemed promising, but from what I've seen they need to be glued directly to the subfloor. My existing floor was installed on top of linoleum, so if I glued the border to the subfloor it would be a bit low. I'm sure this is a problem that has been solved before, so I'm soliciting suggestions.

*EDIT* - Was getting the error: "It was not possible to determine the dimensions of the image." when trying to embed the images. My apologies for not embedding.

To me it's a natural. I would "Lace In" to the existing with 3/4 x 2 1/4 Oak.
Your limited on options to make it look right. IMO if you run the same direction, with a header, feature strip, or border , that looks funny, like patchwork. Same token...you really can't change directions without adding 1/2" plywood, and having a level difference.

If it's something you don't feel comfortable attempting yourself.......It's a daily routine for a good pro to lace that area in, and continue into the other areas. It's also very common with Oak to continue the floor, sand & finish all areas, for a uniform appearance.

I agree. I would also lace into the existing.

Thanks for the suggestions; I'm going to attempt to lace the new floor in.

I take it it's much harder to find unfinished flooring? I stopped by both Lowes and Home Depot and all they had on display was prefinished. Lumber liquidators does have a few unfinished options on their web page, but not much.

Are there any strategies for lacing in when it needs to be done at two different points that are staggered, like I have with my living room/foyer and kitchen/dining room borders: https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-UpzY ... /floor.png
It seems like it might be tricky to have everything perfectly lined up so that the boards meet exactly when I join the living room to the dining room.

I'm doing something similar to you- extending my existing floor. I can't help with the second part of your question (in fact, I'm hoping someone responds cause I'm going to have a similar issue when I do my kitchen. ).

As for the first part finding unfinished wood, search around for a hardwood flooring wholesaler- like the ones who sell to flooring professionals. Many times they'll also sell directly to the public.. That's what I wound up doing. I had to drive an hour 2 counties over just to see their warehouse with samples of my floor in tow, but they had the unfinished flooring I needed in the right species and grade in stock.

Also- besides the species of wood make sure you get the correct grade wood (clear, select, natural, etc), the pattern of the grain and take note of the existing average lengths of board in your house. In my experience the lumber liquidator stuff tends to be shorter even though it was still “Select” grade. It was 1’-7’ long, where the stuff from the flooring wholesaler was 2-10’- a better match for my long planks.

A wide variety of unfinished wood flooring is available from distributors to the trade. The one's I buy from are not suppose to sell direct to the homeowner. If you go to one that's legitamate.....you can find your wood, and they'll refer you to one of the dealers to purchase it.


On the lace in....You can start in either doorway, and work your way to the other. Use splines or slip tongues to change direction, since you'll be in the middle of the room.
I would chalk lines off of both doorways, to keep the strip perfectly straight, to the existing, and other doorway. On laced in end joints...it's not necessary to have t&g.
What you've got is not the easiest installation for the everyday week end warrior.