The proper prep work for any type of paint will kill your allergies. You need to scrape off any loose paint and then sand the old down before applying new. If you are applying a water based paint, then you'd need to sand off all of the old paint, or use an oil based primer and then top coat. Anything durable for concrete won't be low VOC. I'd suggest putting down a vapor barrier/cushion and installing a light colored laminate over the concrete. It will be easier to walk and stand on, and as long as the floor is flat, you won't need a lot of prep to do it.

OP here...to keep you all updated: we have decided to go with BM Natura paint which is zero VOC and odorless. Using eggshell finish on walls and flat on ceiling. Ceiling color will match Kelly Moore Swiss Coffee since that is what is on the rest of house's ceilings. Two walls will be BM Ladyfinger and the central wall will be BM Mascarpone...color names seem appropriate given its the kitchen:) Paint goes on tomorrow (Sunday) so I will let you all know how things go and what we think of the BM Natura paint. Stay tuned for photos!

The age of the slab will determine whether or not you can *easily put down a permanent floor. Many of these homes were built BEFORE plastic sheets were put UNDERNEATH the slab. In the 1990's the plastic became common. In the 80's it was hit or miss. The 70's you had almost no chance to find a vapour barrier underneath the slab. What does that mean...well concrete is porous. It is SOOOOOO porous the Floridian water table can ruin pretty much any permanent floor you install. That means glue down hardwood is out. Many ceramic tiles are out. Porcelain tile is possible but the chance of it *eventually failing. Of course, if you throw enough money at the slab or an older home, you will (eventually) get to the point where the slab is considered 'sealed' and you can put down whatever you want. For many that takes $5/sf to achieve. In reality, assuming you have a home built before the mid-80's, you will be limited to a floating floor. It is possible to purchase floating wood floors...but you are probably limited to engineered hardwood. There are solid hardwood floors that are allowed to be floated....but they are very few and very far between and they are more expensive than most other wood floors. The 'greenest' option is going to be solid wood NAILED TO WOOD subfloors. But you don't have the 'wood subfloor' requirement. That means we start looking at adhesives. But your location might mean you are looking at the 'nastiest of the nasties' to get a wood to glue in place. So we now start plumbing the very shallow depths of solid hardwood floors that are floated (normally means glue is used on the edges to hold them together). The adhesive can be much 'greener'...but you will have hundreds of linear feet of glue added to your home. The COST of these types of wood floors could knock them out of your budget...If you have $10/sf to spend then you will be just fine...if not we move on. OK...now we are into engineered hardwood. They are almost always allowed to be floated. Excellent. Now we have a vast pool of products. A 'nice' engineered hardwood with decent CARB II tests will cost $7-$9/sf. Again the adhesive needed to float them has to be added into the total costs (can add $0.50/sf) but can be Zero VOC. Right. Now we are into the a slightly better 'green' option called cork floating floors. The European sourced products are very very low VOC. They click together easily = does NOT need glue. Costs are $3 - $12/sf. The cost of install can be as much as $3/sf. Vinyl gets us into another layer of chemicals. The VOC isn't what you look at, it is the phthalates. It is a different category of chemicals and are not detectible in the standard VOC test (they are NOT organic compounds therefore you cannot find them on a 'volatile ORGANIC compounds' test). Whew. The REALLY AWESOME VOC/phthalate free products are higher priced. They can and will be more expensive than decent cork floating flooring. I've seen CoreTec Plus+ priced at $8.99/sf USD. A European Grade Laminate will have the same level of VOCs as cork...but will cost $3-$6/sf (or so). I've seen some really nice products sit around $5/sf.

Hi, does anyone have experience with AMF SafeCoat or Earth Paint's Easy Safe 1K finish? They're both low VOC so they're both of interest to us. I am very curious how they wear, how they clean and how the finish appears (matte vs. satin vs. glossy). Thanks