We just DIY'ed our first hardwood floor this past weekend. I found the article linked below very helpful. Of course, we just did one room, not an entire house. You'll need to carefully consider layout, where to start, whether to make it all seamless or have transitions, etc. Here is a link that might be useful: hardwood floor install tips

@Brian Adamczak I had to redo The Entire Floor by hand. I did not re-sand, instead I put on a second coat of Rubio to make the whole floor shiny. This is because I could never get the shiny spots to dull and become matte. I tried everything! My steps were: apply 2nd coat of Rubio chocolate product, wait 5 minutes wipe up as much as possible with a terry cloth towel by hand use a clean terry cloth towel under a handheld sander (Black & Decker Mouse Detail Sander) and get more of the product up and out use a Viva - like cloth - paper towel under the handheld sander to get the last bit of product up and out of the floor. I went through about 20 rolls for 1250 sqft. did not walk on the floor for 7 days I was (am) frustrated with Rubio Monocoat for not being honest about the situation and resolve. I spoke with them at length a dozen times. They were in denial of the problem - even though it happens quite often when you start asking around. Rubio does not recommend applying a second coat. But the problem was that the shinny spots (1% of the floor) soaked up more oil. Therefore I had to get the rest of the floor (99%) to also soak up more oil. It was all about making the sheen uniform with oil. Note, doing 2 coast did darken the color a bit. To be honest, I prefer the matte look over the shiny. In the end the upstairs has 2 coast and is shinny & darker. Downstairs has 1 coat and is matte and lighter. But the extra oil in the wood upstairs makes it more water spot resistant (that is helpful, because upstairs is where the kitchen is.) Whereas, downstairs with 1 coat, there is a tendency for the floor to spot when water gets on the wood. My goodness it was a lot of work. Best of luck!

The flooring on the upper floor (aka bedrooms) can be different from the flooring in the main/public areas. I would pick a colour that is present in the Hickory wood sitting on your main floor and see if I could find a laminate that falls into that colour story. This will add continuity without competition (as little bug and Sina point out). Now the two issues you are about to face: the STAIRS (dun dun DUUUUUUN!!!) and the NOISE. Sigh. Carpets get rid of a tremendous amount of noise. Carpet keeps noise from escaping OUT of a bedroom as well as prevent it from ENTERING a bedroom. Here's what I suggest. Go ahead and rip out the carpet in the upstairs and then LIVE with noise/echo of the subfloor for a week. At that point you will either feel you have an INCREDIBLY well built house (unlikely but always a possibility) OR you will discover how LOUD everything/everybody really is (99% chance of this happening). And that's where you will start your 'carpet replacement' discussion. I have always said a cork floating floor (installed just like laminate) is a great carpet replacement. It is warm, soft and quiet. It deals with 80%-90% of the noise that carpet deals with. It is a 'like for like' replacement for carpet. Laminate is not. Laminate is a hard, rigid surface just like your subfloor (that you found to be quite loud). An acoustic underlayment can be used (QuietWalk Pro or 6mm cork underlay will do the trick) to keep noise transfer from "up down" noise. But it won't help with noise exiting the bedrooms, moving down the hallway and entering another bedroom. Only cork and carpet prevent that. Once you have chosen you material and the underlay thickness you can then tackle the stairs. This gets HORRIBLY tricky. I'm assuming the carpet is on the stairs as well? Right, now we have to keep the stairs to code so that the height of the rise is EQUAL all the way to the TOP FLOOR! That means you have to adapt all the tread/risers to match the FINAL height of the floor+underlayment. Zoinks. And I haven't even TOUCHED on the floor leveling needed once the carpet is removed. Carpets hide the WORST subfloors in the world. These subfloors are thin, wavy, pitched and are of low-grade materials (often fibre board sits on top...which does NOT like patching material). To get a rigid floor (floating or otherwise) you will need to level that subfloor. That's going to eat up $2-$4 per square foot ($2/sf is quite common...$4/sf is not likely but it has happened in REALLY sh!tty builds). And now that the subfloor has been leveled, you have to reassess the stairs. Or you can replace carpet with carpet. This may not be ideal if there are allergy suffers or asthmatics in the house...but it is always an option when replacing existing carpet.

First of all, I've taken carpet out of many areas where there were original hardwood floors underneath them. A hardwood floor is not structurally worse than plywood; in fact it is better quality wood and therefore structurally better. So, if I were going to do LVP throughout the home, and I was worried about the subfloor (the plywood part), I would pull the carpet up first to see what is under it. If there is structurally sound plywood under the carpet then you can make your decision from there about the hardwood. You could always raise the carpeted area to the level of the hardwood and do the LVP then, which could potentially save you money, depending on the size of each room.. Or, you can look for a reducer (strip that connects two different kinds of flooring), but that probably won't be your first preference because it will create a lip and looks old fashioned. Second, in my area (midwest) the market for good used carpeting and any hardwood flooring is so hot that pre-pandemic I advertised an entire second floor of carpeting, in good used condition (no stains, but used) on craigslist and within 24 hours it was gone. People came and took it all, padding and everything. Same with hardwood - family members took theirs out, replaced it with LVP, and sold the used hardwood at an overall profit. It is not hard to take carpet out; hardwood can be trickier depending on how it was put down. Seriously, I'm a 50 year old woman and with a claw hammer and some gloves I could get that carpet up in an 6 hour day, pad and all. Two preteens could take it up in half that time. Now if the subfloor is concrete (no basement), then you may have to scrape the glue off when you remove the padding, but even then glue is usually just in targeted lines, not evenly spread all over, so there is not much to get up.