I've recently purchased a 1950's, ranch style home in south Texas. The house has 2 1/4” wide solid oak strip throughout the “original” part of the home. An addition was built sometime in the last 10 years, (second living and master bedroom), and they put down a cheap quality laminate.

I’m looking to refinish the existing strip (900sq.ft.) and replace the laminate in the addition with a matching floor (700 sq.ft.). The whole house is on a concrete slab foundation, however the addition is about 4 inches lower than the rest of the house (both floor and ceiling). The laminate is floating directly on the slab.

In gathering quotes for the job, one installer is recommending a direct glue down of a 5/16” thick solid (Bruce Ecostrip I think). Is that a decent product? Are glued down thin solids a good idea in general?

My most important objective is to get both the new and old flooring to match as closely as possible in appearance. Having no experience with flooring, a solid 3/4" floor would seem like the safest route, but I’m curious to hear opinions on other options.

Thanks!

I would seal the concrete, lay 6 mil plastic, build the floor up to the 4inches its missing, then top with 3/4 cdx plywood, then matching 3/4 flooring. When its all sanded you shouldnt be able to tell it wasnt all done at the same time

i agree, just make sure you pay attention to the grade of the wood.

I'm hesitant to bring the floor up all the way for a couple reasons. The ceiling in the addition is lower than the rest of the house, and at 8', every inch matters. Also, the master Bath is tiled and I would end up with a 4 inch step down there.

At the moment I'm leaning towards just putting the new 3/4" subfloor directly on the slab (properly sealed first) and 3/4" hardwood on top. That'll be about an 1 1/4" higher than the existing, so the transition into the master bath won't be too noticeable.

From the quotes I've gotten so far, putting in a pre-finished flooring in the addition will save me some money. Will the installer really be able to refinish the existing floor to match it exactly, or will it always be slightly off?

The floor finishing game is not really an exact science. Do not expect that a finished on site floor will duplicate the look of a pre-finished product. These are two different technologies.
A good finisher can make his work look close enough to suit most people's expectations, but exact? No.

A site finished floor will never look like a factory finished floor and visa-versa. It will be LESS money to buy unfinished oak and have it finished in place, since the sander/finisher will be doing the rest of the house anyway. That is the proper coarse of action to get it all to "match" as well as possible. If you are not going to raise up the addition subfloor to the height of the original house ( which I can understand ), then you'll need design a decent step down detail. I cannot imagine a small, abrupt step down. How about a "fancy" ramp affair?

Currently the transition from the original floor to the addition floor is an "abrupt step". It doesn't seem as bad as you might think because there is a set of french doors separating the two rooms. You almost expect a transition there.

We've really been going back and forth on whether or not to raise the flooring, and have finally decided not to. We can deal with the setup as it currently is, and I worry about making already low ceilings feel lower, and would still have to deal with a transition in the bathroom (middle of the night trip hazard). Plus, I would say the majority of houses in the neighborhood have additions with similar transitions, so it's nothing unusual.

We got a reasonable quote on doing the Owens engineered, so I think that's what we'll go with. It gives us a matching appearance in the flooring, which was the main goal, but doesn't require any major changes to the rest of the addition. Searching this board returned lots of good comments about the Owens, so thanks to everyone for posting their opinions. It really helps educate a newbie like me.