Cost-effective flooring over slab?
Our in-laws have an slab foundation and wood flooring mostly — but not in the entryway — leaving a 1 3/4″ elevation difference. To make it more wheelchair accessible, we would like raise the entryway floor elevation to more closely match the wood floor.
A quote for tile installation was about $3800 for 240 square feet (including Quick Level, Ditra, 2.50/ sqft porcelain tile), so I would like to explore other options. I recall there was some kind of tan-coloured pourable material that was concrete based but less likely to crack. It had something added – maybe rubberized. All of the entryway doors are set up to allow for wood flooring throughout, otherwise we might look at finishing the bare concrete.
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Why not just fasten some 1" sleepers (decking, for instance, is about 1" thick, or 2 layers of 1/2" plywood), then lay some pre-finished hardwood flooring? You could either fasten with tap-con or similar or probably just glue the sleepers down.
You mention that you considered finishing the bare concrete. If you are worried about the cost of the job, why not go ahead and do that? Then all you will need is a custom tapered threshold. You could make it out of an oak 2x8; all you need is a good table saw or a sharp plane.