Hi everyone -

My husband and I have embarked on a new adventure of completely remodeling our kitchen (down to studs, relocated a wall, etc) ourselves. As part of this, we are replacing all of the hardwood floors on the first floor of our house (About 700sf.)

Our house is a 1920's bungalow. In a majority of the house, as best as I can tell, we have hardwoods installed over existing hardwoods. The assembly is Joists, then 6" T&G subfloor, and then what I believe are the original hardwoods, approximately 3" T&G. In most of the house, there is an additional hardwood floor installed over that, perpendicular to the original. In our kitchen, It appears that a myriad of floors were installed installed over the original hardwoods. The owners before us apparently tried to scrape most of the old flooring up before they put down a thin plywood base, over which they installed armstrong vinyl tiles. We've removed the thin plywood and the vinyl tiles. I would attach a photo but I'm not sure how to do that tin this editor.

We believe that under the rest of the house there is the same original hardwoods, but without all of the glue and scrape mess. We'd like to come back and remove all of the flooring down to the original hardwoods, and then put down plywood over the entire floor to even it out, and then install our new hardwoods.

Does this make any sense? If it does - what thickness of plywood should we do? I would prefer to screw it down rather than nail it so that there is less chance of it coming out after.

I would consider pulling out the original hardwoods, but everything in the house, door thresholds, etc, has been based off of the new elevation.

Anyway - looking for any thoughts or experiences, and if someone can tell me how to attach a photo, I can do that too so you can see the mess we are dealing with in the kitchen.

Thanks!
Kim

I would rip up everything and then put down a new layer of 3/4 plywood either over the 6" or right on top of the joists. I would also glue and screw/nail.

Thanks Jeff!

What's your thought behind taking out the original hardwood? It's more work, but if it is the right thing to do, we'll do it! Are you concerned about the new floor buckling?

Thanks!
Kim

I wold rip it out then put down the plywood to save the 3/4 inch height.