I am going to paint new concrete. The first area is between the wood siding and the cement apron in the front of my garage. I am also going to be painting the inside foundation which is about 20" in height. Do I need to etch with the acid before I do this. The concrete is all pretty clean. The etching just sounds too dangerous because of the chemicals and to have to rinse so thourouly does not appeal to me. Can I just paint or would I have to prime then paint and can I avoid this etching process. Thanks for anyone's input on this. Dana

LONG but I wanted to tell Jeri all this about my floor in case she is interested in it or her husband is. Jeri, I was so surprised at how much grain Brazilian Cherry has also and there are more boards with more grain I wanted to send in pictures of but I knew that I sent enough pictures before I would bore all of you. I think if you go with a sawn cut engineered or a solid wood plank that is 5" wide (that is what my BR-111 planks are and fit together very tightly IF you have a good installer like my second installer since I floated the floor so 3-M tape was supposed to be used for 1 hour), you will see all the grain. When you walk on the floor, it feels like a solid hardwood floor and you can't tell that it was floated. I floated it for the tiny bit of give and for the extra insulation using the Floor Muffler with the Ultra Seal. I was afraid that gluing it down wood make the floor colder (I have little dogs that walk on the floor so I was thinking of them) and would be a harder surface to walk on. No one can tell so far that has visited that it is engineered with 3M of real wood over plywood. I had wanted Brazilian Cherry for the longest time but kept trying to fall in love with other wood species due to the change in color and fear of it getting too dark. I was amazed that if you leave all furniture off and open all the windows for about 3 weeks that the wood gets richer and darker without being too dark. I have not seen any more darkening up but if there is any, it is subtle since under the TV stand and under the cabinets when moved, there is no color change that I can see. The wood was so brown when I first opened the boxes that I was disappointed and had wished I spent more and went with the Santos Mahogany that I love and still love (Was more money so that is why I went with Brazilian Cherry since the two woods are so similar) but it sat in the family room for awhile until I found a painter and a flooring guy to install it so maybe exposure to oxygen quickens up the darkening process? I also am in an interior townhouse and most of my lights are not overhead but floor lamps if that makes a difference but I do keep all the blinds open in the day time with my big windows in my family room and the floor has not darkened up more and under the TV stand (has wheels) is the same color. The wood in person is very neutral and is brown and orangey brown with a few boards being a reddish-brown. At night with the lights on, it looks more red. It is always beautiful in color and very interesting with the varied grain and goes so well with my cherry desk and credenza and looks nice against the putty cabinets, the Bone White walls, the taupe sofa or any other color that I have near it. There is an amazing abundance of grain with the floor so interesting and not boring which shocked me at first since I had wanted a floor with little grain like I saw in the 3.25" board samples I had here but now I am liking the interesting grain. I chose Brazilian Cherry since it is good with dryness in case I am sleeping and do not have the humidifiers on in the winter time until I wake up. So far no buckling which is good. The wood is very good with dog pee which I know from my experiments from soaking wood in dog pee and now from actual use with my little dog Lexi marking. It cleans up easily and does not turn black. She has been very good since I got the floor and is now marking more outside in the back yard and only once in awhile needing to put her scent on the floor and does not go back to the area that I clean so that is good. I bought the wood from TrueHardwoods.com and no one locally could match their price but I did find two other online stores with similar prices for the 3.25" and the 5" widths. I chose TrueHardwoods.com due to my neighbor having such success. Again, Jeri thanks for the compliments.

We have a similar shower situation to harriethomeowner. House was built in 1956, with basement shower with painted cinderblock walls and a painted (and peeling) concrete floor. The walls are in pretty good condition, just UGLY green paint. I'd like to do a simple update to this space -- we'll be moving in a couple of years, so I don't want to sink a ton of $$ into it, but it needs to be freshened up. I think the least expensive option is just to repaint, but I don't know what kind of paint was used before. A lot of the basement trim/doors appears to be a glossy oil-based paint and the shower floor is the same color, so possibly it is the same? Not sure about the walls. I'm thinking just scrape up as much of the loose flaking paint as possible, clean the floor and walls with TSP, dry well, prime and repaint? But what primer and paint is best? I'm wondering how the pool paint held up? How about the XIM Tile paint?

It's a tough one. Is there a primer on the market that works to block odors and also is suitable for use on a concrete floor? I don't know of one. Kilz and BIN are the only primers I know will work on cat pee, but they are not rated for floors, so they will peel eventually. I guess I would clean them, see how that works, and then use the primer as a last resort.