Calling all folks with Stained Concrete Floors!

[jocoyn]

I have looked into vinyl but wanted to stay away from the VOCs. There are varieties that don't offgass that are corn based not petroleum based but they look pretty institutional and are only offered with an adhesive install. And for an adhesive floor we could do true linoleum [which is high maintenance, I know from personal childhood experience]. ... so for now, just looking at the concrete options. Thanks.

[wildo]

I'm not sure if this will help you or not, but the flooring in the kitchen at my work office is stained concrete and has lasted a very long time under high traffic. Since this was a commercial floor, it may be apples & oranges to a residential floor. Anyway, here's some pics of the floor. It's looked like this for at least 7 years.









[EDIT]- the floor is very slippery when wet!

[jocoyn]

I have seen some amazing stained concrete floor pictures for sure! It is apparently quite trendy. The thing I do like is that it is not the kind of thing (I would stay with the normal baseboards) that would put someone off if we decided to see later because you can always carpet or put flooring over it. The walkout basemenet is nice, finished, 10 foot ceilings....so a good airy space.....I will have to ask about slipperiness because it sounds like epoxy could be more expensive than stained but the coating could have some influence....

[jocoyn]

Found a neat site for this.
Concrete Design Ideas, Contractors and Pictures - The Concrete Network

[Freestep]

Polished concrete can be really, really cool looking with the colors and textures available. You have to do a lot of prepwork to the concrete, though, and if you don't do it right, the polish will start flaking off within a few months. I made that mistake when I did the floors in my grooming shop. They looked awesome at first, and actually had pretty good traction, but they didn't seal properly and the high-traffic areas were flaking badly within a year. If I had to do it all over again, I'd definitely have a professional take care of it.

I love Chris Wild's epoxy flooring! We had that in a veterinary hospital where I used to work, and that floor was bombproof.

The concrete is hard on your feet if you're doing a lot of standing or working on the floor, but rugs and matting can take care of that problem.

[jocoyn]

I definitely think we will hire a professional. If this was a starter home maybe we would experiment but anything I do I think about how it could impact reasale down the road.

[ozzymama]

Cool Home Creations: Finishing Basement: Faux Finished Floor

I'm totally in love with that finish and want to do it on the basement in our new house, the ceiling at our place is only 7', so not usable, but just to make it less dungeon-like. I'm going to do it this winter in the room I intend to use for my canning, try a small space first.

[jocoyn]

I think one bit of advice would apply here just as it would to the stained floor covered with polyurethane...need to make sure a good vapor barrier is under the concrete. You can test by taping a piece of plastic down and seal the corners and look for darkening af the concrete or condensation. If you have it there is a bigger problem to manage.

There better not be here. We are in a radon belt and code requires a vapor barrier between the concrete and the earth.

[ozzymama]

Well, that is the thing right, our inspection was the most expensive our realtor had seen, but really, it had an outbuilding (shed/garage with it's own panel) and we paid for the thermal imaging, now on that day, it showed no moisture issue, but, can we bank on that 6 months from now? Same as hot electrical spots, nothing showed that day... Do you trust tomorrow to be the same as today LOL. I'm going to give the finishing a shot, I mean it's 10'x10', if I screw it up...
The walls I am doing in flex rock, a light camel color, the basement being only 7' tall is unusable, I just want it to be pretty. Not an imagined nightmare for doing laundry LOL. I am hiring painters to paint the ceiling, going to do that neuvo-cool black industrial look for the exposed wood.

[jocoyn]

Cool beans!