Wood floors will move. All surface imperfections will telegraph up through the vynil over time. This includes every joint . You need a flat, smooth subfloor panel with filled joints. Plywood is ideal for it's stabiliity. You can always, sand and fill the hardwood before installing the vynil. But then, why not just refinish the hardwood? First floor town house square footage is probably around 600 sf. It will cost less than your vynil installation project.

Flippers install lvt over real floors all the time, looks good through the listing process. If you remove the hardwood they will need to add subfloor to bring the finished floors up to the current height… but why not just refinish what you have?

I really appreciate the input!! Here is some more detail and I'm wondering what you think. The square footage is actually 945sf, and I received a quote to refinish of over $9K. LVP is attractive to me for several reasons:

• I have a dog
• I love the ease of cleaning up spills (or pet accidents)
• LVP would probably hold color better than the wood has in a certain area where the sun beating in has bleached the wood floor a lot
• I'm told that refinishing wouldn't remove some of the gouges and other marks in the floor
• I like the idea that I can replace LVP planks if something happens, rather than having to refinish or live with future damage

Thoughts?

Many LVP’s will fade in sunlight. Do your research.

" Many LVP’s will fade in sunlight. "

Not "many", most all.