We're renovating a house. The house has hardwood in the bedrooms and closets but had carpet or tile everywhere else.

Our plan was to make the whole house hardwood, with the decision to replace the existing hardwood based primarily on what type and color we pick for the rest of the house.

I didn't notice before, but the subfloor in the rest of the house is level with the hardwood. There are two layers of plywood everywhere that there wasn't hardwood.

From what I can tell, our options are:

A. Pull up the existing hardwood, level the subfloors by adding another layer of plywood, and put in new hardwood everywhere.

B. Avoid all the headaches associated with trying to get everything level, leave the existing hardwood, and go with something thinner in the rest of the house.

I appreciate any thoughts or opinions regarding which one you would do or if I am missing something.

 

What kind of hardwood, 3/4 nail down or floating?

 

The current choice was nail down.

 

Without knowing the thickness of any of your subfloor it's hard to answer.

 

So, let's assume you are referring to 3/4 nail down.

Big if, but if the current flooring is solid then new nail down could be installed perpendicular to the original wood.

I also have to say I've never done this so kind of hesitant to recommend, taking up existing flooring is not as difficult as it sounds, adding plywood to bring the level back up might be my choice!