Our basement in the middle of its makeover. The basement on our house was added sometime after the house was built so it has a deep concrete shelf all the way around it about halfway up the wall. When we bought the house this was covered in dirt and grime, but it did have three sets of study shelves on it. We decided to paint the horizontal surfaces a dark color that would be less likely to show dirt, and paint the horizontal surfaces the brightest color we could find to try to make the basement seem brighter. The image at right shows the final efffect, more or less— our basement after we finished painting and moved in a few things. I'm happy with how it turned out—much brighter!—but we might have to cover the paint on the floor at least with some sort of sealant (like this, maybe?) to keep it from scratching and give it a nice gloss.