There are a whole variety of specialty sealers and stains--urethanes, epoxies, polyspartics. See, for instance, these.

Hi there I am in a similar situation, kids and all, and I am going with floating cork panel. I will seal my basement first so that compounds will not leach out from the concrete and degrade my flooring or the plastic I am laying down first. Then, as suggested by a dealer, I will lay down two layers of heavy gage plastic with seams overlapping and taped. The plastic will go up the wall a couple of inches for insurance. On top of this I will place the floating cork. It is a tongue and groove installation that is not glued or nailed to the floor. I am looking at Ceres, Wiccanders, and Natural Cork as they all carry floating cork and are environmentally sound. I am choosing this as a way of softening and warming up the floor. I am also installing a ventilation fan that can bring in fresh air year round (It preheats the air in the winter) to ensure my investment is further protected. I live in a very wet area so I am taking this extra step. I don't know anyone else who has done this, but I am committed since I need to improve the floor and have such low ceilings that I want a very low profile solution. This is the best solution I could come up with after a lot of reasearch. Also, this is an underground house, so we can't escape to a nicer upstairs. Thus my willingness to invest in a higher end flooring product. Sorry for the long-windedness, but I thought someone might find it useful! Good luck, Grace

Hi, I really need your help. I'm doing some painting in my backroom, in my basement, on the floor. In looking up prices on painting the backroom floor, in the basement. It's about $0.50 to $1 per sqft from what I can see. It's about 100sqft with some odd shapes and the area equipment removed from the sum (eg water heater, sump pump, hvac). My nephew had to learn how to do this for this job, which meant I had to learn too, step by step talking to each manufacturer, store personnel etc as he was with me listening as I asked the questions, we both listened. So essentially I had to instruct him even after this pretty much exactly what to do and over see much of this. He is in late 20's. So far we are 1/2 through it. He has etched it, and the next step is painting it. The first part took 5 hours buying and 4.5 hours to etch using acid to make the concrete porous. The next step is two costs of paint. on the floor, It's already bought. My nephew will have to do the trim and then roll the paint, and then do another coat. He has experience in painting so that part should not take that much time, maybe 3 hours then some dry time and then the last coat and then clean up. So I look at this as a learning experience but I want to be fair paying. Any guidance? hp

I second what glennsfc said about no plywood. I would even be leary of using laminate. We used vinyl tiles on our floor (self-stick) 26 years ago. Then put an inexpensive area rug where the kids played (in front of the tv). That was so easy and bullet-proof with whatever the kids spilled. Arts, crafts, glue, it took so much abuse. Easy to change out the area rug every so often. When we laid the tile, we used a waterproofing film over the cement floor first before laying the tiles. Ours is a walkout basement. No water issues and I have only occasionally had to run a dehumidifier. (i.e. this summer only once) 26 yrs later the tiles are still down and I'm looking to replace them only because I'm tired of them but they are still stuck tight and will require some work to get them up. Tile is in the laundry room and bathroom down there also. We do have carpeting in a bedroom down there - just regular padding and carpeting. We have never had a mold or mildew issue. Never. You don't say if your HVAC system runs thru the basement? And do you ever need to use a dehumidifier down there?