Where the Hardwood Ends

My biggest dilemma so far has been how to save the kitchen hardwood floor.

In the photo, you can see where the original house ended 

and the new house began.

So far, the consensus was that the floor joists in the newer section

were higher than the original joists to make the subfloor even

with the hardwood.

This meant that no new hardwood could be added

because any new floor would not be even with the existing floor.

We had plans to cover the floor with tile, 

but I just couldn't bear to do it.

However, I'm now 99% sure that the consensus is wrong.

We noticed that the bathroom floor is lower than the kitchen floor.

Both are part of the newer section

and if the joists had been made to be higher, the bathroom floor should be the same height

as the kitchen floor.

So I did some poking in the basement, 

and I'm pretty sure

(with my limited know-how) 

that the joists are even and the plywood was added so linoleum could be laid over the hardwood.

This means that we can keep the hardwood we have

 and add hardwood to the newer section to make one big hardwood floor.

I won't know for sure until we pull up the plywood to have a look,

but I'm hopeful!