My husband and I have bought our first house. It is an older home (1954). We currently have carpet throughout the kitchen and powder room(!) We started to rip up the carpet and found old asphalt tile underneath. The tiles came up easily, but we are left with the adhesive paper/glue on the subfloor. Scraping this up is extremely difficult. If we are putting a temporary plywood floor down - is it necessary to scrape the subfloor clean? Also, because
we only did half the room, we have not ripped up the tile on the other half. Can we nail/screw plywood right over those tiles, and avoid the whole mess altogether on the other half? Our ultimate goal (2-3 year plan) is to put hardwood throughout the entire main floor, including the kitchen and powder room.

So what are you going to do until the hardwood goes in, just walk on the plywood?

For a short-term fix, installing the plywood on top of the glue or the remains of the old floor tiles will work. It can even work in the long-term as long as the extra height does not detract from the room. For example, you could screw down a 1/2" plywood floor and then install a nail-down hardwood on top of that. With a total of 1-1/4" of subfloor and finished flooring, you will need to make changes to base and door trim, cabinetry and transitions to other rooms.