Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - Hardwood Floor Installation Question

I'm installing a glue-down engineered hardwood floor. The strips are 3/8" thick, 2 5/8" by 16" tongue and groove. Instead of the typical strip installation, my wife wants to try an alternate layout. She wants to do a checkerboard pattern. Each square in the checkerboard would consist of 6 parallel strips. The strips in each square would be at a 90 degree angle to all the adjacent squares. Here's a rough diagram:

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Is there any reason this won't work? Thanks for any advice you can give.

Dan:

Your description sounds like a very large parquet pattern. I see no reason for it not working, but may require alot of precision so as to keep the pattern aligned. Each piece will have to be exactly 16" or it will throw off the whole layout.

Thanks, Ken.

What about the possibility of movement? I know that when you lay the floor in the regular way, you're supposed to offset the butt ends of the strips so all the ends don't line up across the room. Will this be a problem with the large parquet pattern?

You will need to figure additional waste as patterns tend to require more material, thus driving up the cost of the project. As each individual manufacturer of laminate products tends to have their own specific installation recommendations, contact the manufacturer of your product re: any technical questions.