If your basement is finished or semi finished, floor ?

June4bride2be · October 2011

What is on the floor? We are making a playroom in our huge basement. I want to keep part of the floor concrete for riding bikes and such, but also want an area of warmth for floor play.

Area rug? Pad under it, or no? Laminate in the "finished" area?

We are not putting a ceiling in, but may do a wall or 2. Nothing fancy or $$$!

Thanks!

jewelsonu · October 2011

we had carpet down there(it is 1/3 finished with walls and closets) but dh cleaned the carpet and we didn't realize our steam cleaner broke and the water didn't get sucked up. Needless to say we had to rip out the carpet. So it is all concrete. Our basement is where Morgan (our dog) is when bailey is out. Dh bought laminate tiles to put down. I think we paid $.11 a tile so it only cost us less than $25.

NYmama2 · October 2011

When we bought our house last year the basement was already finished. It has the nicest softest rug down there. It's even nicer then the rugs that are in the bedrooms upstairs. haha. It makes me a bit nervous though that we have carpet down there because of potential flooding issues but it helps with the warmth because we don't have heat down there. We need to get on that since we are trying to convert that to our toyroom once our little one can do stairs.

I am so jealous that you have a basement big enough for the kids ride bikes. That sounds great especially with the weather starting to turn.

I guess it depends on how old your kids are and how long it would be a playroom and then what your plans might be once the kids are older. Would you turn it into an office, rec room, gym...etc. Might help you decide what you would want later on.

Irisheyes1247 · October 2011

My grandparents have a finished basement with tile floor. They have a VERY big basement, so there are two smaller areas with area rugs and very thin pads but I actually think the rugs are from other areas of the house that have been replaced (instead of wall-to-wall carpet, they have all their rugs finished on the edges so they can be turned to minimize wear in high traffic zones).

My parents first house had a finished basement and that was carpeted but with maybe indoor-outdoor carpetting or just the cheaper stuff you can get on the roll at Home Depot or something. I don't think there was a pad.

Ashnmike528 · October 2011

Can I just say how jealous I am off all of you who have basements?! Our house is built on a slab, so no basement. One of the 245,658,3552 reasons I want a new house!

BTW-June, are you going to move all the toys from the current playroom down there, or have 2 playrooms?

wendyj · October 2011

We just have concrete floors right now, but if we ever get the chance to finish the basement completely, I'd like to do either engineered hardwood or laminate with area rugs. Our basement is pretty dry, so we could even do carpet, but I don't want to take the chance. We'd probably do 1/2 - 2/3 of the basement and leave the laundry and workshop area with concrete.

Two*True · October 2011

Our basement did have carpet but then we had a flood. We decided to leave the cement floor, but we painted it. We used garage floor paint and painted a blue and white checker board pattern. We have an area rug in the section that we have a futon/tv.

missyjg · October 2011

We sealed our concrete and then just put down those interlocking foam mats. It's colorful, can be easily cleaned up if we just want the concrete. Some of the mats have peices that come out in the shape of a letter or animal so it serves as a play item as well as the floor. It's soft but firm enough that the kids can ride the indoor bikes. We don't want to carpet unless we waterproofed the basement which is megabucks!

MelissaSue81 · October 2011

We did not do ours.. its probably been finished the way it is since the 70s or 80s, based on the decor.
But half of our basement has carpet.. its the cheapy carpet.. its probably indoor/outdoor, but what they did, which i think was smart, is the floor of the finished half is raised about an inch off the ground, there must be a wooden floor under the carpet.. so if water gets on the ground (which it does, a lot) the carpet doesn't get wet.

And when we moved in, the ceiling was covered with burlap. it was lovely. We did put in a drop ceiling.

June4bride2be · October 2011

Ashnmike528:
Can I just say how jealous I am off all of you who have basements?! Our house is built on a slab, so no basement. One of the 245,658,3552 reasons I want a new house!
BTW-June, are you going to move all the toys from the current playroom down there, or have 2 playrooms?

Um, have 2 playrooms for now! =P I figure when R is older and I work outside the home or whatever, we won't need his current playroom....but a place to play downstairs would be still good. We have a ping pong table down there that came with the house. The basement is the full size of our upstairs, so plenty of room for everything. For now I want bigger stuff down there....pool with balls, outside toys to play with indoors for winter, slide, etc. I also want dh to hang the swings up down there, R loves to swing!

I was just telling dh that I am tired of having the space down there wasted. It is mostly dry and very well lit. The cats have had the run of it forever, I want my basement back! Dh has a workshop down there, and we have storage too but washer/dryer are upstairs.

June4bride2be · October 2011

MelissaSue81:
We did not do ours.. its probably been finished the way it is since the 70s or 80s, based on the decor.
But half of our basement has carpet.. its the cheapy carpet.. its probably indoor/outdoor, but what they did, which i think was smart, is the floor of the finished half is raised about an inch off the ground, there must be a wooden floor under the carpet.. so if water gets on the ground (which it does, a lot) the carpet doesn't get wet.
And when we moved in, the ceiling was covered with burlap. it was lovely. We did put in a drop ceiling.

Burlap? Nice! haha

kac0807 · October 2011

I would go with carpet tiles. Check out https://www.flor.com/ they have all different styles, colors, patterns....you could even make it look like "wall-to-wall" carpet (I know they have more plush pile and also berber which are more of that kind of look) or you can do something to make your own area rug.

TinyPinkBug · October 2011

We opted for a fresh coat of floor paint and area rugs. For the most part, the kids don't really play sit down activities down there. When they do, they tend to sit on a couch. Mostly it is set up for ride-ons, or putting up a tent, or bouncey house, sometimes a giant train track.

xKimx · October 2011

Ours is 1/2 finished & we have cheap thin carpet down there. We also have a thicker area rug that covers half of it (our living room is in the basement so the rug is where the couch, tv, etc. is)

TinaL99 · October 2011

We refinished our basement last year and did wall to wall carpet. I love it!

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