prepping a basement for paint

So one of the reasons that I started this blog was to share sometimes hard-to-find information on doing home improvement projects. Strangely, I found it pretty hard to find information on how to prepare concrete basement walls for paint.

The project at hand is to paint the concrete walls of the basement of our 1924 home. In the past there has been a fair amount of water seeping through one of the walls. After improving drainage on the exterior of the home, we think we have the leakage problem solved.



But there is still a lot of peeled paint and efflorescence on our East facing wall. The rest of the basement walls have paint that has held up pretty well and I imagine that we'll be able to paint over that. But we need to somehow prepare the flaky surfaces for primer/paint.

This article from the New York Times seems to outline the necessary steps pretty well. I also found some good tips in this book, "House Painting, Inside and Out."

Based on these sources, here's what I'm planning on doing:

• use Peel Away paint stripper to remove all old paint around the flaky areas; this paint remover is supposed to be especially useful for safely removing lead paint, which we might have in the basement
• brush off excess concrete
• treat concrete with muriatic acid (etching)
• prime/seal it
  
• paint it

demolition days

As we've been clearing out our basement and doing some demolition of our own, our neighbors across the street are having their house "deconstructed" by the Rebuilding Center. Good entertainment for the neighbors, if nothing else.

At this point, the chimney stack and the stairway are about all that's left of the first floor.