For several decades, poured and painted or tinted (colorant added to the top layer) concrete was the standard floorin Phoenix. They have held up well since the 1930s.

IN a basement ... smooth finished concrete with a sealant is a good floor. You might be able to have the sealant tinted to give you a color besides grey.

I'm planning on doing this. Its great.

Thanks lazygardens and Frank for your input. We are going to cost this opinion out.

Carol

Stained concrete is significantly more than a basic tile where I am located, and I am in a low cost labor environment. It's also not as maintenance free as tile is and will need periodic waxing and buffing. In the presence of moisture, like a basement, the wax may whiten and lift off of the surface. A two part industrial epoxy can be applied instead of the waxing treatment, but then you're well into in the more costly than tile scenario. And the thing about stained concrete is that if you ever change your mind and want to apply tile at a later point, you will have to grind the surface down to get the old surface treatment off in order for thinset to adhere to it. Tile isn't a fall back position without a lot of mess and expense.

You might also look at some of the loose lay vinyl products for a basement as well as the new floating vinyl plank systems like Konectco. Those can be laid straight over a smooth slab and then if you decide to go to tile later, it's a simple matter of rolling them up and trashing them and getting a tiler to set the tile on the unaltered slab.

Stained concrete is really common around here. Most of our friends have stained concrete floors, and we do too. I do not hear complaints from anyone about their floors, and we certainly love ours. Easy to clean and maintain, looks great, holds up well.

Thanks tectonicfloors for your vote and for sharing your experience with concrete floors.

Carol

Thanks hollysprings for your helpful comments. I especially appreciate knowing that applying tile after stained concrete is a bit of a bother (we had thought tile could be easily added after the stained concrete if we changed our mind). We will cost out vinyl too as suggested. They do make some nice vinyl flooring these days.

Thanks for your help!