worthy, as someone else told me that the pic on the left shows that the basement slab extended outside. That's a GUARANTEED leak situation. And I've double checked my blueprint, mine is not like the left pic. My walkout wall is sitting on the concrete foundation (frost wall under grade). I've attached it here. Which one is more desired? Durability? Termite resistance? Flood/Moisture resistance? Fire resistance? Of course concrete may have cracks in the future. All I wanted to ask is which one is a better way to design the walkout side considering all the aspects.

I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but the link below has some pictures of our deck over a walk out basement. The builder used Cedar for the support posts, which aren't noticeably different from a distance. One thing I don't especially like about our deck is the number of support posts, making the area underneath feel like you're under a pier. The good thing about it is there is absolutely no movement on the deck, even with 20 people on it during a party. Here is a link that might be useful: Ipe Deck on house with walkout basement

Hi, northcarolina. Right, the paint looks fine in some lights and on some walls. I do have a carpet scrap; didn't think of taking that to the paint store, but I will on my next trip.. We have 32 sample cans of paint in our basement, we still don't have the downstairs painted, and some of the rooms upstairs after we finished still don't look quite right to me. (I also am not known for my design sense.) I haven't tried a gray yet, although I put a dot of the Kilim Beige in our MB on top of this Cochise we're trying out in the basement, and it looks very gray in comparison. But it ended up looking "dead" upstairs (next to the purple wall in our MB), and I already wish I could change it in the MB. I probably will, although DH thinks I don't paint carefully enough and gets in a twist every time I say I'm going to redo a room. Can't really blame him, we're in this house 3 1/2 years and the paint saga is still going on! I did ask SW to give me 50% of the Cochise, and we're going to try that next, although a one-foot sample on the wall is a pretty uninteresting color. The Sagey looks great with the carpet upstairs, and on the one wall that extends to our basement, but if we use that it would mean green in the LR, DR area, and down here. With the green granite in the kitchen, I think it's just too much green for me, although now I'm thinking maybe we should do that in the family room in the basement and do the basement office and guest room, which have more light, in different colors. So much for "unifying" the look down here. I'd really like to know how your color adventure turns out. I hope you'll post pix,maybe in this thread? Thanks for your help, and good luck! More ideas, anyone? And thanks in advance.

We did 3 sides brick and the rear hardi siding. Probably blasphemy in some circles. There is a bit of brick wrapped a few feet where the concrete wrapped. Saved $30k. There are so many windows on the back wall, the siding doesn't look bad. And then a deck and screened porch break things up. Not 5 people have actually walked around the house and would care about the transition. The back yard is almost uniformly accessed from the inside of the house. Where there is a walkway, there is vegetation to completely break up the transition - Like you walk 50 feet and see a wall of bushes - so there is no awkward visual transition even for the 10% of people who might notice. Honestly - our next house may be brick front only which my better half has always loathed but appropriately landscaped so you don't notice is a lot cheaper than brick. We currently have this enormous brick side wall that was kind of a waste. It is 10 feet from the lot line just like our neighbors - there is no path there. The A/C contractors get to see it. There are several large trees blocking the view from the road.