Solid Hardwood, Engineered and Laminate Flooring - How do I lay floor when linoleum was there first?

I want to laminate flooring in my dinign room and living room, which are connected. The living room used to have carpet and padding, which we removed. The dining room was linoleum. When I went ot remove the linoleum, I found it was glued on top of what looks to be a very thin sheet of plywood. This plywood is somehow affixed to the top of the normal plywood subflorring.

What do I do? The linoleum + wood base are too high to just ignore, and I do not want to have a transition strip in between the two rooms. Here are some pictures to help out:

http://img393.imageshack.us/img393/6196/floor1bq4.jpg

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/7977/floor2kj3.jpg

http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/5578/floor3gt5.jpg


Do I remove the linoleum and the wood? If so, how is the wood affixed? How do I remove it? Thanks!

It looks as if the stuff was installed by a pro or at least a well informed DIYer. If that was the case, the wood is either screwed down or stapled. In either case, my guess is you're not all that interested in saving any of it so simply employ the old "rip and tear" method of removal. It's very unlikely there is any glue under the wood. It should just be down with fasteners. Unfortunately, if it was done correctly, the fasteners will be every four inches on the perimeters and every six in the field which will mean getting it up in a lot of little pieces unless the heads of the fasteners will just pop on through the wood. Use two flat bars and sort of walk them through, under the wood, and pull up on one as you work the other farther under. You might be able to get it up in larger pieces that way. After the wood is out, go back and remove the fasteners. Wear knee pads or the floor will get tough to kneel on with all those fasteners sticking up. The vinyl itself will come up with the wood, unless it's easy to remove. If it is, you might be able to take it up, investigate what kind of fasteners were used, and proceed accordingly. If staples were used, follow the above procedure. If screws were used, you might be able to take them out with a drill and avoid the rip and tear thing. Have fun.

Wow thanks for the help!!

I removed a piece of the linoleum, and found that screws were employed in fastening down the wood underlyament. I was able to unscrew a couple, but have since run into another problem:
Putty!

Each of the screws is well into the wood, and putty was placed on top of each one, sanded, and has been dry for the life of the install (probably 15 years). As such, its really hard to get to the screw head. Any tips on removing this putty?

Thanks!

Use a flat tipped screwdriver to get out the worst of it and a blade of some sort you don't care about to work it out of the heads enough to get the screwgun tip in them. Then again, you could try prying the stuff up and see if the heads will just pop on through the wood. If they do, you can deal with the screws after the wood is out with a vice grip to turn them out. That will take less time than trying to individually clean out each screw head.

Another fast way would be to get a couple 3/8" metal drill bits and 'drill' the heads off if the won't easily break off as suggested above. Rip the wood out... then break out the vise grips.

...you could also then use the screw gun to remove the screw shafts. But that depends on the value and chuck type of said screw gun. I keep an old one handy for such destructive uses.

So I pulled up the linoleum from 1 small area, chipped out the putty, and removed all the screws. I went to remove the board and guess what---its glued down!

The board is really thin type board, but it is both glued and screwed. Should I just continue the way Ive been going?

Good grief, what a nightmare. Screwed and glued. Sounds like you're on the right path. Have you tried tearing the wood out around the screws? If it'll come out that way, a vise grip will take the screws out without the digging out the heads step. Short of that, continue to march.

This lends credance to the phrase, 90% prep, 10% paint. Even though this has to do with flooring, it still applies. These are the contigencies we as contractors try to plan for in our estimates. On the surface it looks like a basic install, but this one threw in a zinger from left field. Its tough when you are working on a hard signed contract and you have the abide by your estimate.

I recently did a small 1/2 bath remodel where we had to remove wallpaper. In the estimate I calculated 1/2 day for prep. for the walls. When removing the wallpaper, if we got lucky, we managed to get a piece of wallpaper off that was the size of a penny. It took 2 DAYS just to get the paper off. Took it on the chin on that job.

Good Luck on your project, I feel your pain:o

By now, you could have installed underlayment over the living room, and already installed the laminate.