Lately, I?ve been thinking about basement floors. The train of thought was prompted by a homeowner who asked for advice. She gave up believing her basement will never take on water again, but she didn?t want to abandon it like she did the wall-to-wall carpet she had to rip up and throw out after the last “taking on.”
She still needs to use the area for her home-office work space. Because clients come to visit her there, she wants it looking nice. The problem is the floor. It?s concrete. It?s not totally level and not so smooth. What could she do to tart it up?
Early in my Renovating Woman career, when I was asked about a treatment for a concrete basement floor, in a heartbeat I?d say, “Paint it gunmetal-gray.” Not sexy, but definitely utilitarian. Everyone was doing it. Basement floors were looking like the decks of battleships. There really wasn?t much else to do in most basements in homes built before the 1980s. You could have covered the floor with vinyl tiles and risked having them crack underfoot or loosen up from dampness, or you could have thrown a carpet on it and wasted your money either way.
Then about three years ago, I met Mary Jo Whelan, of Parkville. She told me then how she “tiled” her concrete basement floor and never looked back.
This is her story.
“My basement flooded, damaging the wall-to-wall carpet. After we removed the damaged carpet, I was left with ugly concrete floors. I thought I would like to have a tile floor but found the tiles to be too expensive. The next-best thing I could think of was faux painting the concrete to look like tiles.
“The first thing was to clean the concrete and put down a neutral base color. I chose to use blue, orange and gold colors … mixed with equal amounts of Flotrol glaze and a small amount of water. Using blue painter?s tape, I taped out large squares and began my painting process.
“Haphazardly, I would brush on the colors, allowing them to touch each other. Then with a sea sponge, I began to sponge off with a quick, swift motion, moving and blending the paints around. As the paints blended together, new colors would begin to emerge.
“I would do one taped area at a time, making them all different and unique from the others. When the tape was removed, the original neutral color would show through, looking like the grout between the tiles.
“When the paint dried, the next step was 3 coats of polyurethane.”
Mary Jo confessed, “I did not really start with a plan other than to make my floor look like large tiles. I found it to be a very relaxing experience, just letting my hands do the job, then standing back to see what I had created.” Try it. You?ll like it.
Caution: Don?t paint yourself into a corner; plan to finish at the door.
Allegra Bennett hascovered cops, courts and politics as a journalist for national newspapers for 21 years. She is also the author of three books, publisher of Renovating Woman – “The Do-It-Herself magazine” – and is a home repair expert on “Home Made Easy” on the DIY cable network. Got questions? E-mail your question to [email protected]
