I recently bought a house built in the mid 1800s, in the basement it is all limestone: the walls, ceiling and stairs. I really want to keep the old look in the basement but I also live in Kansas and we have a lot of tornados so it needs to be safe. I just need to know how to seal it up and make it as strong as possible. Also the floors are dirt I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for the floors to go with the old look.
Basement remodeling, I need to know how to seal up limestone walls and ideas for the basement?
Posted by admin
on January 8, 2010
If the limestone is smooth and doesn’t need any refinishing (or if you like it the way it is) you can just apply stone sealer (they have various tints, so you can choose). Old, sun-bleached barn wood always looks great on basement walls, if you want to cover the limestone. If the ceiling is high enough, you could add some character to that by putting in rafters (with the necessary support frame placed in the corners. As for the flooring, anything you put down would have to have some type of sub-flooring underneath to keep out moisture and dampness. Although it would be quite a job to accomplish, concrete would be best. Once you have that done, you could use concrete stain (there are beautiful choices for refinishing concrete these days) and then just use area rugs to accent the floor.
http://www.concretenetwork.com/stained-concrete/
http://www.finishabasement.org/how-to-finish-a-basement-on-a-budget.html#more-56