We are combing our kitchen and formal dining areas into one large room. Each room is 12x15, the kitchen currently has vinyl and dining room has hardwood. The hardwood is solid 2" wide, 5/16" thick facenail red oak, the same as the rest of the house. It it not T&G. Condition is very good for a 60 year old house but we plan to have it refinished and possibly re-nailed to silence a few squeaky areas. From what we can tell the sub-floor is also in good condition albeit squeaky in spots. It's 3/4 pine planks laid 90 degrees to the joists and the hardwood is 90 degrees to the subfloor.

I was thinking of picking up used flooring of the same type for use in the kitchen. We would have the kitchen/dining area refinished slightly darker than the rest of the house and maybe add some inlay accents where it meets the adjoining areas. Is this a good plan?

Another option would be to pull the hardwood up in the dining room, renail and sand subfloor, then put down new 5/16. Cost of new 5/16 material is about $4/sqft so not terribly expensive and may give a better finished product.

Some have recommended that we buy new 3/4 T&G hardwood and deal with the height difference since there is only one area where the floors meet. Can this be laid without issues on the plank subfloor?

Plusses ond minuses for the different options? We'd prefer not to use 5/16 or 3/8 floating floors like Pergo.

Thanks.