Adding hardwood foor to existing

[The dude]

I am buying a new house. The main level and stairs are hardwood. Looks like the type that was sanded and finished after installation.

At the top of the stairs is hardwood, but the bedrooms are carpet.

I want to remove the carpet and replace with hardwood.

I have a few options. Remove the existing floor up to the top of the stairs, and lay down all new floor on the stair landing and the rooms. Then I can put pre-finished floor without worrying too much about matching.

Or I can put down unfinished and then refinish the entire upper floor. Not sure about this one since it will be DIY.

[aemeijers]

What is under the carpet in the bedrooms? What year was house built? If there is forced-air heat, pull up a register and look around the edges with a flashlight, to see the floor layers.

-- aem sends....

[The dude]

There is nothing under the carpet, the hardwood floors and the carpet was put in at the same time.

[aemeijers]

Carpet right over the plywood or OSB subfloor? Not even a layer of luan or particle board? And when you say hardwood, is this real T&G hardwood, or that engineered stuff with just a hardwood top layer?

I wouldn't lose sleep over making the rooms and landing match. Unless the hardwood runs at right angles to the doorways and you were planning on weaving the transition, you will end up with a strip under the door where the eye will not find the slight color change shocking. Changing the exact shade at the top of the stairs would likely be more noticable. Can you track down who did the work in the first place, to determine where the floor came from? (Brand or mill?) If it is within last few years, odds are you can get real close on grain.

-- aem sends...

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Not knowing your skill level, it is difficult to recommend DIY unfinished hardwood. You can rent the tools or buy them and re-sell after the job is done. It takes more finesse to sand the floors than many people have. I recall my first experience and leaving a couple of valleys.

Pre-finished is simple with a few tools that you will want to have anyway. That is the way I'd go.

[trader4]

I'd say it depends on several factors. First is if you are happy with the existing wood look that's in the landing area. If you wanted a different color wood upstairs, then the landing area has to go and you transition from the stairs.

Otherwise, since it's new construction, you should be able to find out the wood and finish used for the landing so it can be matched exactly. If there is any concern about matching it exactly, then the size of the landing area comes into play. If it's small, and there is some risk of not matching exactly, for whatever reason, then I'd take it out. This issue becomes more of a problem since the existing is not pre-finished. If it was, you could just get some of the pre- finished and see if it matches.

If you want to leave the landing and stay with the color, then easiest and safest course would be to get whovever did the install for the builder to do the job.