Home Improvement With Flooring and Concrete

If you're looking to improve the value of your home, look at improving the flooring in your basement. Most homes are built on a concrete slab, and the basement tends to be an unfinished storage area; Concrete construction is cheap, durable and effective. Unfortunately, it's also gray and ugly in its standard state.

First, consider laying down some tile or linoleum. Carpet isn't recommended for a basement refinishing job, as basements tend to accumulate water from inadequate drainage and seeping from the soil around the house. This can ruin a carpet or carpet pad quickly, and provide a thriving home for mold colonies, triggering allergies and toxic gas emissions. Throw rugs on the floor can be a good accept, but decorate the floor with something that won't suffer when the wet comes in.

Good tile patterns can be used to create the optical illusion of more space, by using geometric patterns that run diagonally across the room. The eye follows the diagonal lines and the room appears larger; similarly, light colored walls can make your basement refinishing look more airy and open, even if you don't have a lot of windows or natural light, and certainly improve the looks from concrete cinder block walls.

A more interesting flooring option is acid treatment or acid staining. By using a dilute mixture of acid, water, metal salts and other materials, you can apply a wash; the acid serves as an emulsifier to put the metallic salts in a solution with hydrated lime; this results in an insoluble, permanent stain on the concrete that goes seeps into the pores of the concrete surface.

These chemical stains come in three basic color groups: black, brown, and blue-green, usually with a rich earthy hue. They're applied with a mop, like a floor polish is. By varying the application, you can make swirling patterns, like swirls of cream in coffee.

You can also make regular lines on your floor by laying down masking tape in varying widths before you apply the stain. Pull them up when the stain dries, and you'll have lines that are the original color of the concrete cutting across your colored surface. Because you lay this down directly, you can adjust the geometry in ways you couldn't do when laying tiles down.

After laying down the stain, you can also use stamps, or roller brushes to lay down patterns of paint on the floor; you're going to be putting two coats of sealant over everything, so the paint will be protected in the process. With the right materials, you can get "blonde" trims going through a deep earth toned floor, or lay out a pattern like forest leaves in dark green over a black and brown background, and a lot more.

Both of these flooring options will let you improve the value of your home with ease, and make it more attractive.

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