What kind of flooring is in your basement?

[HIU8]

We are doing our basement with sweat equity. Our house was built in 1970 and the basement was built for storage only (concrete steps etc...). The house is a split level, it's not a full footprint basement.

We are framing out a storage area and hanging the sheet of fake wood paneling (not the wood color though-a white most likely) and putting a door on it. The play area for the kids will be L shaped. It will still be raw--as in cinderblock walls and floor joists above and exposed pipes and electrical box. All we want to do is put some sort of carpet or flooring down so it isn't so cold. All the kids toys will go down there and we are adding some lighting and a few new outlets to accommodate things.

The reason we are not "doing" the basement the way it should be done is that we expect to only be in this house for a max of 3 more years and we don't think we can recoup the cost of a basement.

So, here is the issue--we can't decide whether to put down a floating wood floor that locks together or a cheap carpet instead. I'm leaning towards a cheep carpet. What have you done and why?

[Fairy]

We are doing our basement with sweat equity. Our house was built in 1970 and the basement was built for storage only (concrete steps etc...). The house is a split level, it's not a full footprint basement.

We are framing out a storage area and hanging the sheet of fake wood paneling (not the wood color though-a white most likely) and putting a door on it. The play area for the kids will be L shaped. It will still be raw--as in cinderblock walls and floor joists above and exposed pipes and electrical box. All we want to do is put some sort of carpet or flooring down so it isn't so cold. All the kids toys will go down there and we are adding some lighting and a few new outlets to accommodate things.

The reason we are not "doing" the basement the way it should be done is that we expect to only be in this house for a max of 3 more years and we don't think we can recoup the cost of a basement.

So, here is the issue--we can't decide whether to put down a floating wood floor that locks together or a cheap carpet instead. I'm leaning towards a cheep carpet. What have you done and why?

Burber carpet.

[Gena]

We have berber carpet with a thick pad. It was affordable, warm, and pads the floor for our rough-and-tumble DS.

[lil_acorn]

Berber carpet over an 8 lb pad over a basement sub-floor. If you are not planning on staying in your house the sub-floor is overkill, but we will be here a while and my son has asthma/allergies and I did not want to risk any potential moisture exacerbating it. We typically don't get water in our basement and have only had leaks becuase of the bulkhead. We re-sealed it as part of our basement re-do so knock on wood that should keep any moisture out.

[HIU8]

We just had our basement RE-waterproofed. The old owners had done it with a not so reputable company and we got black mold. We now have 2 sump pumps and a new drainage system. It's been 3 months and no water so far. We are just going to lay carpet on top of the concrete. We need to make it look like something and make it useable. But we can't sink any more $$ into the basement. the whole redo we are doing should cost under $1,500. It's mostly to move the kids stuff and give them a space and have it so that we can clear out the upper rooms when we show the house.

[lowrioh]

Cheap burber carpet. If you are bold you could probably even install it yourselves. The wet basement issue in DC is a huge pain in the @ss. Our previous house had sump pumps and they failed at one stage which forced us to replace the existing carpet. We went with the cheap carpet and we basically looked at it as being disposable.

Not sure where you are in the DC area but if you have an Ollie's nearby they often have really cheap carpet remnants that are pretty large.

[HIU8]

Where is Ollies--MD or VA?

[TwinFoxes]

We have laminate. But in the playroom over the laminate we put those foam puzzle tiles, which are nice and soft for clumsy toddlers. :)

[catsnkid]

Cheap laminate squares, some of which have been replaced. Over that we have three big carpets- one a tag sale find, one is the leftover from our bedroom, and the other is a cheapo big area rug from home depot.

[HIU8]

We have some area rugs we could use. However, the steps are concrete and I need to have them covered with something so the kids don't hurt themselves (and even though we sealed the concrete when we go up and down the stairs we bring up concrete dust with us to the rest of the house).

Is there anything that can be put on steps other than using w2w carpet?

[Percycat]

We have carpet in our basement, which I desparately want to replace....

But, if the area you want to cover is primarily a roughly finished playroom and you don't plan on staying for a while, why don't you consider the big colored rubber interlocking floor squares. We covered tile floor in our main floor 'florida room' with squares we bought from sams. My husband cut some of the squares to provide wall to wall flooring. My mom liked the look, and purchased similar squares to cover up the new carpet in her finished basement playroom. We have several friends who also chose this flooring.

The tiles are great. You can even pull them up easily to clean them if needed.

I don't have a picture, but you can see the effect on this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l703lyALBaA

angela

[KrisM]

We also have the foam puzzle squares from Sam's.

http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=5&item=331314

We cut them so that they are wall-to-wall and around corners, etc. It is really nice, IMO. I like that if one gets dented or damaged, we can replace it easily. Is soft enough for the kids to be crawling on, too. And, I can vacuum it.

[lowrioh]

Where is Ollies--MD or VA?

They're in MD and PA. I think the closest to DC would be in Columbia.
http://www.olliesbargainoutlet.com/
I've only been to the stores in PA so I can't vouch for the MD ones.