laying wooden floors around fireplace

[spurs1]

Just wondering if anyone would know whether its possible to lay a fireplace and hearth with a gas fire on top of a wooden floor as in the picture below(to the right of main picture). Have a guy laying my wooden floors tomorrow and havent bought a fireplace yet, so am unsure what to tell him with regards to the laying the floors around this area. I have removed the existing fireplace, which had a tiled hearth that was laid into the floor. Would be so much easier if I could get him to lay the floor up to the fire, and was then able to insert my hearth and fireplace above the floors. Hope I'm making sense!
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[sanne]

You would probably need granite or slate hearth laid as part of the fireplace installation. Really you should get the fireplace and hearth in place first and then get the flooring laid around the hearth. It may be possible to lay the hearth over the fireplace but the finish could really suffer.

Of course the floor layer will tell you its all grand as its easy for him to just lay the floor flush to the wall instead of cutting around the fireplace.