[TrudyM]

If you are not on slab you go 90 degrees to the stringers. The floor guys will tell you it doesn't matter, but IMHO it does. We have found in our many moves that older houses laid in the same direction as the stringers tend to squeek with age more than those laid at right angles.

The bonus of diagional is all cuts at the wall are along the width of the goods no ripping long strips to get that 1" bit at the last wall. If the installer only had a 90 degree chop saw instead of one that does 45 degree cuts he's not very good anyway.

Another that works and looks great but you will have a hard time finding an installer to do it is log cabin. I had a dining room with a step down to the living room in a house I owned in the 90's. The room was really out of square. We did a large square in one color in the middle set like a diamond and then went around it with log cabin pattern (some call it pinwheel). That is the tounges facing out. First row starts at the right edge of side A of the square and runs to the wall and must be secured really well. It is started with just the tounge sticking out past the corner . Second row is against the next side of the square going counter clockwise with the end tounge fitting nicely into the groove of the first row. Then next side counterclockwise and when you get to the 4th side the groove will slide into the tounges of the first side.
This requires no extra cutting as only one cut at each wall. I found the added work comes in sorting through the piles of flooring (in radom length flooring) to find a piece that is aboout the length of what you need for the last piece at the walls. You can't use the piece you cut off from the end of one row to start the next as all the start pieces need a tounge on the end. So if same length flooring more waste especially.