This is a really old thread, but for anyone that finds this (like me), let me share my recent experience. We had an unfinished basement for 10 years. Over those years, we had seepage through the walls due to improper drainage outside (this was a brand new house). I agree with the poster above that suggests you fix your landscaping. We had spots where water was pooling, and water just...finds a way. It's what it does. Anyway, also during that time, I worked down in the basement on top of some old carpet and pad that we tore out of a room we put hardwood floors in. Never had any issue with that just sitting on the floor. We recently had our third child, and decided it was time to finish the basement. We decided that we would waterproof the north side of the house that had most of the water seepage in the past. For the flooring, we put down linoleum in the bathroom, laminate in my office, and carpet in the main part of the basement where the kids would play. Lowe's sold us on the VERY BEST (their words) carpet pad for basements. It's this newfangled crap that has a "breathable" vapor barrier. So water can escape from underneath but not penetrate through it from above. That's the claim. Well, fast forward LESS THAN ONE YEAR... The whole area where that carpet is smells musty and gross. If you are going to use a pad, DO NOT, PLEASE, GOD, DO NOT buy anything with a vapor barrier on it, even if they swear it is breathable. It may be breathable, but not enough. The crappy 6 pound rebond stuff I had sitting down there for probably 7 years never did this. The moisture from your floor needs to be able to escape, not get trapped underneath there. Lowe's is now sending out somebody to look at it, and they will decide how to handle this problem. It is going to be a huge nightmare. Even if they are super cooperative, and offer to replace everything, I still have to move all of our stuff out of there, have it all tore up, clean up whatever mess is there properly (somehow I don't think Lowe's will do this part for me), and then get it reinstalled again. From other things I have read, if you are going to put anything over top of the concrete, you shouldn't try to seal it. Walls are one thing, especially if you have functioning drain tiles that will drain the water that has nowhere to go. I'd be interested to know if anyone has opinions on the laminate I put down in my office. Underneath that is the foil covered pad, which is...a vapor barrier.. Every video you watch on the internet says this is how it's done in basements. I get stopping the vapor from hitting the laminate, but worry now that it's just trapped and will try to creep up the walls. Home ownership is so much fun!

There is a new vinyl out now that looks like wood. I think it's sold in strips. Someone over in the Home Decorating forum said they bought it at a big box store (HD or L's) and it looks very nice! Very nice indeed! A great compromise for this kind of application. We put vinyl tiles down in our walkout basement when our kids were younger than yours, and it's still holding up just fine. (One is about to graduate from college now) Believe me, it has taken years of use and abuse. We put a large (inexpensive) area rug down in the family room/TV area to give it a warmer feel and when the kids wanted to play board games on the floor... but the rest is just the open tile. Easy to keep clean too. We did use wall-to-wall carpeting in the guest room down there and it's been replaced once and is about to be replaced again. It does have a "warmer" feel but it doesn't hold up in the long haul as well as the vinyl. My 2 cents - good luck!

sams club from time to time has sold rubber interlocking tiles about 18 x 18. One side is colors and the other is lack. Its a good flooring for home gyms. They usually sell them as playroom carpet or similar.

That is a floor sink and they were quite common in houses built between 1900 and about 1950. Usually they had a flat iron cover plate that had a lift handle on the top, and most of them had a cylander of stiff wire mesh (hardware cloth) that stood up in the drain opening, although my now no doubt the wire mesh has rusted away and been tossed out years ago. Back in the days before automatic washing machines they used wringer washers and laundry tubs. Both the washing machine and laundry tub was mounted on small caster wheels so they could be pushed up close to the wall for storage, but pulled out and set up where the operator could work from all sides of the washing machine and laundry tubs. You began by setting both the washer and tubs where you wanted them, then you filled the washer and the tubs with hot water. You then started the washer agitator, put your laundry detergent in the washer and tossed in your first load of clothes. After it agitated for about 5 or 10 minutes you would start the wringers and feed the clothes into the wringer from the washing machine, and they would go through and into the first rinse tub. You used a stick to lightly agitate the clothes in the tub, the you rotate the wringers around so they are over the tub and run the clothes through the wringer. If you desired a second rinse you let the clothes go into the second tub, otherwise you caught the clothes as they came out of the wringer and put them in your laundry basket and carried them outside to hang on the laundry line. (In winter they often strung the drying lines in the basement too). When washing white clothes it was a common practice to put a product called "bluing" in the final rinse water. Generally they would run two or three loads through the washer and laundry tubs before changing the water. Some of the washing machines had a pump to pump the water out of the tub, but early vintage machines and the laundry tubs just had a drain hose that let the water drain by gravity. If you were lucky the floor sink was located where you could just let the drain hoses drain into the sink, but more often than not they had to drain the water into a bucket, which was then poured into the floor sink. By placing the floor sink at an angle such as yours it made it more convenient to pour from a bucket into the floor sink because you were pouring into the diagonal measuement of the sink rather than a side. The vertical tube of screen was used as a lint trap to keep lint out of the drain. In some rural areas such as where I grew up they did not yet have electric in the house so Maytag made wringer washers that had a small gasoline engine and the engine had a kick starter something like the old kick starters on motor cycles. When I was a kid on the farm Grandmother had one of the old gasoline powered washers and in summer she would have us boys set it out in the yard where it was cooler to work and she didn't have to worry about the exhaust, not to mention that it was also easier to hang the clothes to dry right from the machine rather than tote a heavy laundry basket outside. Although I doubt that many ppl in this country have ever seen a gasoline powered washing machine, Maytag did continue to build them up into the early 80's and they sold them overseas to third world countries that did not have electric. (They are still popular in many Amish Communities)