ᐅ Basement Floor: Paint, Tiles, Vinyl, or Something Else?

Hello forum,

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the right information using the search function. Since my wife and I are beginners in this matter, we are turning to your collective expertise.

Here is the situation: We are buying a turnkey semi-detached house from a developer. It has a fully basement made of waterproof concrete. The developer will not do any further finishing of the basement, meaning we will receive the plain concrete slab. The basement area is about 52 sqm (560 sq ft).

The basement will be used for technical installations (connections, district heating, etc.), as a laundry room, and for storage. Especially for doing laundry, a plain concrete floor is not very pleasant.

What kind of finishing would you recommend? We would like to do as much as possible ourselves and, well, it should be reasonably affordable.

Thank you very much and best regards,
Leonbra

Linoleum or install tiles yourself cheaply. Glued vinyl is very durable but less eco-friendly.

Unheated basement? Is there insulation underneath?

Raw concrete slab from the builder? Then the first (messy) step will be grinding before anything can be applied on top.

Apply leveling compound on it, then paint with garage floor paint. The two K paints are high quality.

It would be reasonable to have the screed installed professionally and then possibly lay the tiles yourself using affordable tiles from a hardware store. The screed installation costs about 1200 euros plus materials, and with the tiles, you’re looking at around 1500 euros in total.

Recommending flooring without considering the use of the rooms is a tricky matter. From a purely technical perspective, no specific action is necessary. In a utility room, I would install tiles; in a room that might occasionally accommodate guests, something more comfortable and homely; and in plain storage rooms, I would either paint or tile.