Filling concrete walls in the basement

Hello everyone,

we have a WU concrete basement that will be painted in DIY. The basement concrete wall is untreated and will not be filled.

Accordingly, the joints at the basement ceilings are also not filled. The concrete obviously has many small bubbles, which raises the question for me:

Do I have to/should I fill the concrete walls throughout my entire basement and then paint them, or can I maybe paint directly with the right paint without the appearance suffering too much?

I was maybe thinking about just filling the joints at the corners, because surely the appearance would suffer significantly here if I don’t do this.

Filling four rooms entirely... I would like to avoid this effort.

Does anyone have experience with this? Has anyone maybe been in the same situation and decided on one or the other option and can report on the result?

Ahem, I wouldn't paint the ceilings in the basement at all...

Ahem, I wouldn’t paint the ceilings in the basement at all...

I’m concerned about both the walls and the ceiling.

I’m currently unsure how the result will turn out with just a quartz paint or similar without applying any filler beforehand.

Sure... It’s the basement, and right now you only do this once anyway. The question is simply how much the results will differ from each other and how much the difference "bothers" me.

That’s why it would be great if there are perhaps people here who faced the same decision, possibly without doing it themselves, but by hiring the general contractor.

The thing is: The interior walls are masonry and will also be plastered... Only the concrete walls, thus the exterior walls, remain completely in the raw state.

No idea how it will look if I really leave the concrete walls untreated and just paint over them.

Sure... It's the basement, currently it's only done once anyway. The question is simply how much the result will differ and how much I "care" about the difference.

Utility basement? Then just paint it and that's it. Otherwise, please smooth plaster and sand completely. Just "a little plastering" is nice. And nice is the little sister of shit...

Utility cellar? Then just paint over it and that's it. Otherwise, please putty and sand it completely smooth. Just "putty a little" is nice. And nice is the little sister of shit...

Utility cellar... yes!

I would also prefer to just paint the technical room and the laundry room, as the effort to putty there would be too high for me.

In the storage room, I am thinking about puttying. It could be separated later with drywall and a hobby room could be created...

I think I will paint the technical room first and see how the result turns out – then I can still decide whether to bother puttying the other room.

We started our renovation in the basement. There were partly drywall panels in front of the concrete, and in some places the ceilings were suspended. We have now plastered and relaid the floors. I think you can see the difference very clearly. Before, I would have said that we should save ourselves the effort. But I like the new beautiful basement :)