Hi Sue, if I recall, when I looked into a stained and polished finish for our concrete floors it was about $5/sq ft. We ended up going a more diy route -- Breakthrough paint by Pittsburgh paint company. It's meant for forklift traffic on warehouse floors and they can custom mix about any color. We get lots of compliments, and it's extremely durable and ultra low maintenance.

You'd have to sand the existing paint off. And it's probably lead if the home is as old as you say it is. You will need to keep the slope to the floor drain and not level it out. You probably should also think about a perimeter drain tile if the basement has other moisture issues.

After the prep work is handled, you can surely chemical stain the concrete and then finish coat it, probably with a clear epoxy. It ain't' cheap though, and that's labor is on top of the prep work needed.

If you DIY all of the labor, rent the concrete grinder and handle all of the lead disposal, then you can probably do it for around $3-4 a square foot.

Thank you for your responses! I will definitely look into the Breakthrough paint.

GreenDesigns, this might be a naive question, but can they just put a thin layer of concrete over the paint and stain that layer? If we have to actually remove the paint and grind the concrete ourselves, it's not going to happen!

Thanks again!