We are getting new floors put in next week and cannot decide on how to treat the hallway. We live in a L-shaped house with the living areas and kitchen on one half and the bedrooms and hallway on the other half. If I treat the living room and the hallway as the long run and main direction of the flooring, then I will end up with the floors running perpendicular to the direction of the galley kitchen. If I treat the front living area and the kitchen as the long run then the floors in the hallway will be perpendicular to the walls. The hallway is narrow enough to where I feel like it could visually make the hallway feel squatty. The bedrooms are square enough to where I really don't think it would matter which way they run. Below is the current floor plan for reference. The wife wants the front brick tile taken out which is creating the issue since I no longer have a break in the flooring and would have a natural transition to have two different flooring directions. Thoughts?

Just to clarify - all the wood floor in the drawing will be contiguous?

Yes, that red brick area is getting removed and all floors will be contiguous.

You could always add a decorative transition strip at the opening to the hallway that would allow you to change the direction of the flooring. I have seen both decorative wood and tile to create this change.

I'm with Ben. The private hallway doesn't seem like that big a deal when you will see doors/connections to the other rooms with the direction of the floor.

I wouldn't do any sort of transition strip. Those seem like mistake-covers to me.

What type of wood flooring? Engineered? Traditional?

Some of the engineered ones need a transition after so many feet of run in order to not void the warranty. I put engineered hardwoods in a pier and beam type home and ran it all the same direction but used transition strips at most of the doorways.

Also, I would let the run fall into the hallway and run it crossways. Just make sure the put random joints down the hallway.

In this case I agree
so long as it's all left to right