Welcome NailBanger:
Many folks now are having their basements poured using a form that imprints a brick pattern. A basement wall is almost always going to have a moisture problem; therefore, I would just clean the bricks with a brush and paint them as they are. That will keep your investment to a mimimum and, be aware, it will have to be done again and often.
Just clean bricks would be an appealing wall to me but when you go into resrufacing the bricks you will have moisture problems and surface failures.
It occours to me that we may be talking about concrete blocks instead of brick, the names seem to run together at times. If it is concrete blocks, I take back all I said.
Glenn
