How to Lay a Herringbone Floor: A Fitter’s Step-by-Step Guide

Updated October 2026

This isn’t a DIY guide. Unless you’re very handy, a herringbone floor is a job for a professional fitter. But if you’re having one fitted, it really helps to know how it should be done. You’ll ask your contractor better questions, and you’ll spot the shortcuts before they end up under your feet.

Here’s how our teams lay herringbone in London homes, step by step. It’s the same method whether it’s a narrow Victorian hallway or a big open-plan kitchen.

Is herringbone flooring hard to lay?

Yes. Much harder than plank. With plank you roll out long boards in straight rows. With herringbone you’re fitting hundreds of short blocks, in left- and right-handed pairs, and every wall needs angled cuts. A mistake of a couple of millimetres in the first row becomes a very visible wobble by the far wall.

That’s why most of the work happens before any herringbone goes down at all.

Step 1: Check the subfloor

The subfloor is the structural layer under your new floor: floorboards, concrete or screed. For herringbone it needs to be three things:

• Flat. Any dips or humps will show up as gaps and movement in the pattern.
• Dry. We glue herringbone down, so residual moisture in a concrete screed or old boards causes problems. It should be tested with a professional moisture meter before fitting.
• Something you can glue to. That means flooring-grade plywood or a levelling compound. We don’t glue directly to OSB or chipboard (cheaper composite boards that contractors often use for subfloors). They’re a bit like Weetabix when they get damp.

We’re based in East London, so we see a lot of Victorian houses (lucky us). The floorboards in many of them look like a rollercoaster. In Hackney, a subfloor that needs no work at all is very rare.

Step 2: Level it up

There are two ways to deal with an uneven subfloor. You can lift the boards, repair the joists and fit new boards. That makes sense if you’re doing a bigger building project. Or, if the existing floor is structurally sound, you can level over the top. That’s what we do on most jobs:

1. Staple 6mm flooring-grade plywood to the floorboards.
2. Seal the gaps between the sheets with silicone or expanding foam. Levelling compound behaves like water, and it will find any gap.
3. Prime the ply so the compound grips.
4. Pour a fast-drying levelling compound across the top.

Within about 24 hours you have a flat, solid subfloor that’s ready for herringbone. On concrete, we go straight to the levelling compound.

Step 3: Decide which direction to lay it

This is the question we get asked most. There are two ways to decide: run it with the light, or with the direction of the room.

• With the light: run the pattern towards the main window or garden doors, so the light travels along it rather than across it.
• With the direction of the room: run it along the length of the room. In a hallway, that means down the length of the hall.
• When the two disagree: lay a few loose blocks both ways and stand in the doorway. We’ll talk it through with you on site.
• Through several rooms: keep one direction throughout, so the pattern flows from room to room without a break at each doorway.

It’s usually obvious which one looks right once you see it on the floor.

Step 4: Set out the centre line

Setting out is where a herringbone floor is won or lost. The fitter marks a line, usually down the middle of the hallway or room, and the whole floor is built off it. In a hall, that means the cuts at each wall are the same size, so the pattern looks balanced.

Old London houses are rarely square, so a good fitter checks the line against all the walls before committing to it. They’ll often dry-lay a few rows first. Set the line out well and everything else follows. Get it wrong, and the floor will never look balanced, however good the rest of the fitting is.

Step 5: Glue the blocks down

Our herringbone blocks are tongue and groove, and they come in left- and right-handed versions. The fitter glues them down along the centre line, slotting each block into the next to form the zig-zag, then works outwards towards the walls.

At the edges, every block has to be cut down to fit, and around doorways, curves and fireplaces too. You make a lot more cuts with herringbone than with plank. That’s a big part of why it takes longer to fit.

Step 6: Add a border or brass inlay (optional)

A border is one or two rows of plank fitted around the edge of the room, framing the pattern like a picture. We fit borders and brass inlays regularly, and they’re one of our favourite details. They also do a useful job. Because the border runs along the walls, it hides the angled cuts and takes up any walls that aren’t quite square.

A brass inlay is a thin strip of solid brass set between the border and the pattern. It catches the light and sharpens the line between the two. It needs careful setting out, because the brass shows up any line that isn’t dead straight.

These photos are a chevron floor, but borders and inlays work the same way with herringbone.

Step 7: Finish the edges

Finally, the fitter leaves an expansion gap at the walls, hidden under skirting or a neat bead, and fits thresholds at the doorways. Then it’s furniture back in, and you’re done.

So where do things go wrong?

Almost always it’s one of these:

• Fitting onto an uneven subfloor. You’ll get movement and gaps. Have a perfect subfloor and everything else gets easier.
• A badly set-out first line. The pattern drifts, and the cuts at the walls end up uneven.
• Tongues not fully seated in the grooves. This leaves small lips and gaps that catch the light.
• Moisture. Glue-down floors and damp screeds don’t mix, so test before fitting.

Unlike laminate, herringbone is a job for a professional fitter (here’s when you need one). If your contractor doesn’t mention the subfloor, moisture and setting out, be wary. You can also read more about the different ways of fitting a floor, and meet our fitting teams.

Our herringbone floors

All of these are engineered oak, glued down by our own fitters, with no fake sales and the real price per m².

See all herringbone floors →  ·  See chevron floors →

Herringbone fitting FAQs