We are tying up a big whole-house renovation where we took our cape cod, moved some walls, moved the stairs, and therefore have a situation where our existing floors are a bit of a patchwork. They are around 1.5 to 2-inch wide planks with nail heads. Before renovating, every. single. step. you took squeaked. Literally. It was the noisiest floor I'd even seen. Now, with all the construction dust having settled in the cracks, there are far, far less squeaks. Almost none.

Here's the dilemma we're facing... In our kitchen and living room area, we added on and so we have no choice but to replace the floors there, and we're looking at either vinyl or water resistant engineered hardwood. For the rest of the first floor, we're getting a price on patching and refinishing. Ideally this would be the best option, as it would be cheaper/easier than pulling up the old floor and replacing it. But we're worried that the squeaks will come back and that this will end up being an expensive temporary fix and that it would have been more cost effective to just rip them all up and put the vinyl/engineered hardwood throughout.

Does any have experience with this? Thanks!