Before starting flooring, each owner faces a dilemma: how to lay a laminate - along or across the room? This issue is really important, since the proper installation of the slats allows you to create a single floor space without visual differences and highlighting the joints of individual boards. It is advisable to place smooth lamellas across the room so that the joints are not visible in natural light, and for a three-dimensional drawing that imitates natural wood, laying boards along will allow you to highlight and emphasize the texture.
In addition to visual perception, the load on the floor surface should be taken into account. In places of greatest traffic it is recommended to avoid lateral joining of lamellas. Why is it important? Because the increased load on the locking joints leads to premature wear of the lamellas, surface sagging and creaking appear.
It is also important to consider the direction of laying the laminate in the room when planning the further placement of furniture. If the concentrated load from the legs of heavy furniture will fall on one board, this lamella will quickly become worthless, the substrate will wash out, the protective layer will lose its elasticity, which leads to the need for premature repair.
All these conditions must be considered before laying the laminate along or across the room.
In what cases and how best to lay a laminate
There are several ways to form a laminate floor. Boards lay:
- across, relative to the source of natural light;
- along;
- diagonally.
In addition to traditional laying methods, the options are also used for laying the boards in the “herringbone” (in this case, the boards are fixed at an angle of 90 degrees) or by the “labyrinth” method, when various formats of lamellas are combined.
To decide how to lay the laminate - along or across the room, or maybe even diagonally, you should understand the features of each method.
Diagonally
Before proceeding to the laying of the laminate in a diagonal way, the owner should understand that this method most often used only by experienced finishers, since it will be difficult for a novice builder to cope with adjoining adjacent panels at the right angle (usually, the lamellas begin to be laid at an angle of 45 degrees relative to the wall).
In addition to the complex procedure for installing panels in the framework of this technology, it is necessary to be prepared for increased material consumption and, consequently, additional costs.
This method is used in the following situations:
- When the owner wants to get a non-standard, effective flooring. Especially interesting is the combination of different installation styles at the places of transition from one to another room of the apartment;
- When two sources of natural lighting are provided on adjacent walls (in such a situation, the planking of the boards along or across will not allow to obtain the integrity of the coating pattern);
- If necessary, visually increase the boundaries of the room;
- For finishing in L-shaped narrow rooms.
Along
The installation of lamellas along is considered to be the most optimal from the point of view of saving materials, as well as the most popular way of arranging flooring among finishers. The device for finishing the floor by this method is available even to a novice builder.
In this case, the light source is perpendicular to the stacked boards, which allows masking the joints of the panels, as a result of which the surface of the floor looks as a whole.
This option is applied by default when the window is on a narrow wall. If the room has two windows on adjacent walls, this installation method loses its advantages and other methods of arranging the coating should be considered.
Across
The transverse laminate installation method should be used under certain conditions. This usually refers to the visual perception of the floor:
- If chamfers are provided on the lamellas, at the points of their connection, this way the texture of the drawing is emphasized, why try to mask it by placing the boards along, it is not worth it;
- The popular use of 3D drawings also looks advantageous when the lamellas are located across the room;
- Boards with volume embossing, imitating the natural texture, should be placed across to the light source;
- If there is a need to visually expand a narrow and long room or corridor, a transverse laying method is also used.
In addition to the requirements of a visual nature, situations arise when the transverse arrangement of the laminate is required to ensure a long service life of the coating:
- In a situation where the arrangement of large furniture is possible only on the wall opposite to the window. In order to avoid increased load on one laminate board, laying across;
- In places of the most frequent movement of residents, it is desirable to arrange the boards in the direction of travel, across the source of natural light.
When using the transverse version of the installation of the laminate, you should be prepared for a higher consumption of material than with longitudinal laying, since fitting the panels along the length leads to the appearance of a mass of scraps.
Nuances of styling in unusual conditions
Non-standard cases of the configuration of the room are considered curved shapes, T-shaped and L-shaped spaces, as well as special types of lighting in these places. For the equipment of flooring in an unusual apartment space, several special laying methods or special types of panels are used.
On the balcony and loggia
The small sizes of these structures and the peculiar lighting make it possible to choose various techniques for laying the laminate, but for the arrangement of loggias and balconies it is better to go from the size of the width of the space to be covered.
In stores, it is easy to find lamellas with a length corresponding to the width of the balcony, so more often they are laid perpendicular to the main wall. This method allows you to save on material.
In the corridor
It is advisable to visually expand the narrow spaces of the corridors and hallways, so most often the lamellas are laid across the room, but with the non-standard configuration of such objects in the apartment, you need to think about how to lay the laminate correctly - along or across, or consider other options.
In new homes, in addition to standard long and rectangular corridors, you can find T-shaped, L-shaped and curved rooms, therefore, when choosing an installation option, several important points should be considered:
- The configuration of the room.
- Intensity of surface exploitation.
- Possibility of visual correction of design flaws.
Without natural lighting through the windows, the question of which direction to lay the laminate becomes irrelevant, because in such rooms different options are possible. Given the features of the space between the front door, rooms and the hall, experienced craftsmen recommend using the following tips:
- Narrow and long corridors need to be visually expanded, so here you should lay laminate boards across or diagonally. It should be borne in mind that the load on the corridor is higher than the usual load in other rooms of the apartment, therefore it is advisable to use a minimum number of small segments and place them closer to the walls;
- When choosing a laminate in the corridor, it will be more correct to abandon narrow longitudinal patterns, since this pattern, when laid along, will only enhance the feeling of a long and narrow room. At the same time, with the transverse arrangement of boards, aesthetic perception is lost;
- Square lamellas, forming large drawings on the floor, look good in confined spaces;
- Before laminate flooring, it is advisable to check how the seams look with an artificial stream of light in this room. The installation method may depend on this;
- In the L-shaped and T-shaped rooms, it is recommended to abandon the standard transverse laying and perform the flooring of the slats diagonally or in a "herringbone".