I am about to start a flooring project and I am a little unsure of myself after thinking about it. I had originally wanted to start in the great room, but I am not sure how it would work when I have to start working "backwards" with the tongue and groove when I go into the bedroom that is behind the starting point. Going "forwards" and nailing through the tongue is no problem, but how does this work when going backwards? Do I have to start at one end and go only in one direction or can I do the largest room and move backwards into one of the bedrooms? The boards will be running north/south in the image.

I have a link to a crude picture of the layout I am talking about.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64880002@N02/7175919220/

1st..

go perpendicular to floor joists.

2) start on an outside wall whenever possible.
3) use slip tongue to reverse the direction..( install backwards..)

it is a spline that u insert in the groove and it becomes the new tongue so u can switch direction.

if you want to start in the family room take measurements of the room to determine square..strike starting line with chalk..then u can measure form that line to your furthest bedroom walls to see if you run out crazy and adjust accordingly.

So we are thinking about not going perpendicular (I know this is not the preferred installation method) and the flooring store called their installer and he said if we wanted to do this then we needed to not nail it down and instead glue it down. Doe that make sense with 3/4" solid maple? That seems really weird to me.

Visually, parallel to the joists will look better than perpendicular based on the layout of our house. It would work the other way if necessary. Our subfloor is 3/4" OSB that is nailed down. I plan on adding a lot of screws before installing the wood.

Sounds like a very odd suggestion of gluing a 3/4" solid because of the floor joist direction. I almost thought the bad economy would chase all the wanna be installers out of the business. It looks like the opposite. Ask them about a diagonal nail down. You would take care of the floor joist direction dilemma and offer a stunning look. But then I wouldn't feel confident at all with this guy and his gluing suggestion. Look around, there should be some real installers in your area.

Can the perpendicular rule even be broken? The look would be much better if it could be parallel. The 4x8 3/4" OSB tongue and groove subfloor runs perpendicular to engineered I beams floor trusses already if that matters. I understand that this would mean that most boards would never be supported by the trusses directly which is where the problems arise. Just checking.

Also, what are those splines to change direction of the tongues. Can they just be biscuits?

BAD IDEA. when it settles and starts to roll and creak like an old rocking chair the aesthetics will be far less impressive. You have to have a minimum of 1" of subfloor to run parallel, thats a minimum!