New here and very excited about laying our wood floors and have been researching information all over the web. The rooms we want to lay floor on includes the hallway, foyer, dining room and sunken living room. The sunken living room is still above ground. I've been trying to post pics here for the past hour and it just isn't working! So anyway, I will try to explain.

For right now, I'm really concerned about where we should snap the chalk line. We have a ranch style house and our hallway runs into our dining room. Floor joists run perpendicular to everything however I want to lay the planks in the foyer parallel to the joists. The foyer seems pretty solid.

Also, another question; we notice that when our dog (she's about 35 lbs) walks across our sunken living room we can feel a little bounce. Maybe it's because sometimes a dog "prances" rather than walks so we can feel it, but when we walk across the floor we can't feel anything. Would it still be a good idea to lay additional plywood in that area?

Thanks for your help!

Here is our floor plan:

Ok, well I'm trying to post pictures and I'm not liking that it links directly to photo bucket when you click on the picture. I see other photobucket pics and that doesn't happen.

BUT, if you do click on the pic you can also see a "before" pic of our house before we moved in and it gives you an idea of the flow of the rooms. The photo is a view from our sunken living room. The diagram is from Ifloor.

If you can give me some help on pics too I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

i`m not a pro, so could be shot down in flames here.

string down your longest runs, ie sunken living room in the center and cut your end/start board to give you a straight line if this is not true (straight) to your center line. as for the hall you will have to install a transition piece at the doorway into the dinning room as this width is over 10m.

Thanks Rab1. Actually, the hallway runs into the dining room. I don't think I'll need a transition piece(?). In the diagram you can see an overlap, but thats just me trying to measure the hallway. It's the only way I could figure out how to measure the hallway. I started at one end and measured all the way to the end of the Foyer wall. Thats where the hallway & dining room intersect.

In fact, there is this diagonal piece right where the hallway, foyer and dining room join together. I figured the overlap you see would make up for the diagonal piece you don't see.

You did make me realize something else and I hope I can get some more responses to my post. Since I plan on running the foyer in a left to right direction as opposed to the rest of the diagram; the end pieces are not going to be tongue and groove when we butt the ends of the foyer together with the hallway boards running vertically.

hmmm....,

May I ask "what type of flooring you have selected?"
It will help in determining the most logical start point for this installation.
If it is a nail down application of 3/4 inch wood for instance, you will be able to interlock the the floor at the change of direction in the foyer without too much difficulty.
Also the added weight and stiffness of the floor may alleviate the "bounce" you feel in the living room. You may also (if you have access from below) be able to stiffen up the joist structure with additional bridging, or if no access, additional plywood underlay on top of the subfloor may help. Since it is a sunken area, the added plywood should not interfere with the balance of the installation, if I read the drawing correctly.
Any further details you can provide will certainly assist the guys here in guiding you through this installation

Oh, sorry. Yes, we plan on using 3/4 nail down 3 or 4 inch planks of either Amendoim or Brazilian Rosewood. Both are beautiful, but I'm leaning towards Amendoim. We live in the central area of Washington State. We get hot dry summers and very cold winters. Our AC or heat is on most of the time. Other than that I'm not sure what you need to know. If you double click the diagram you can also see a photograph of the rooms we want to install except for the foyer. I want to tear out the iron banisters and replace it with 3' tall bookcases flanking the step down.

I've actually been underneath the house! My husbands knees are bad so this time I put on a hazmat(?) suit and went under to see which way the joists ran. I tried to get as far as the sunken living room to look at that but I was running into pipes and vents. I think I could see concrete supports but now I'm not sure. At the time I was trying to get a look at the floor joists in the foyer area. I failed. I don't think it will be a problem running the boards perpendicular to the joists in the foyer area though.

We plan on doing most of the work ourselves, tearing out carpet and some kind of swedish laminate. The step downs we might have someone else do. But where do we start? At first I thought the most logical place to start would be the dining room. But now it looks like the chalk like would be from the hallway through the DR and then work towards the far walls?