Travertine Honing and Polishing
Achieving the Look You Want For Your Travertine
Travertine adds unique appeal to any space, from rugged and rustic to welcoming old world charm or stunning high-polished elegance. However, your travertine can become dirty or dull-looking, scratched, etched, cracked, chipped, or otherwise damaged with time and use. If this is true of your travertine, don’t replace it! Tennessee Stone Care can restore it, not just making it look better, but making it look brand new again.
A versatile stone that has naturally occurring holes throughout, Travertine is available in two distinct forms — filled and unfilled. With filled travertine, sometimes the material used to fill in the holes pops out or becomes exposed. This problem is easily remedied with our traverfill services. Unfilled travertine can be a challenge to keep clean. Scheduling regular professional travertine cleaning services is an easy way to ensure your travertine remains clean and sanitized.
We provide expert interior and exterior travertine services, for all kinds of properties, from homes, apartments, and condos to offices and other commercial properties, warehouses, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, and more. Whether you need minor services like having your travertine cleaned and sealed or major services like a complete travertine repair and restoration, we provide a full range of travertine care and maintenance services.
When your travertine baths, showers, floors, lobbies, entries, walls, or other surfaces need to be deep-cleaned, sealed, filled, honed, polished or repaired, our expert technicians can provide these services. Please read on for more information about your particular needs.
Refinishing
Travertine comes in a honed (matte finish) and a polished finish. These finishes need to be cared for and will, from time to time need honing to remove scratches and etching or it will need to be re-polished and sealed. Is your floor too dull or too shiny? Call Tennessee Stone Care. Whether you have or are seeking to acquire a gloss, semi-gloss or matte finish, we can finish your travertine surfaces to your specifications. If you have a new floor with some tiles that look more glossy than others, let us even out the finish for you.
Grinding
Are your travertine tiles uneven? Do you want your tile floor flattened to the grout lines to facilitate easier cleaning? Tennessee Stone Care can grind away the excess stone to create a flat, level surface using state-of-the art diamond grinding technology. Once the uneven tiles are leveled (this is called lippage removal), the travertine is honed and polished to your desired finish.
Honing
Does your travertine floor have dull areas associated with wear patterns, scratches, etches or spots? We can hone your travertine surfaces to eliminate these imperfections, resulting in a new travertine surface free of damage. With our travertine honing services, our expert technicians can achieve a honed or soft matte finish that is warm, inviting, and velvety smooth.
Polishing
An uneven finish, dull spots or etches can diminish the elegant appearance of your travertine floors. We can polish your travertine using the appropriate diamonds or polishing powders to restore their former beauty. With Tennessee Stone Care’s travertine polishing services, our expert technicians can achieve a gorgeous, glass-like polish.
Sealing
Once your travertine floors, showers, tub surrounds, walls, and other travertine surfaces are restored, we highly recommend you have us seal your travertine to enhance its stain resistance. All stones (unless resined) are naturally porous, quick to absorb staining agents. While most stains can be removed, travertine stain removal can be time consuming, expensive and often frustrating. Sealing represents an inexpensive, preventative measure against travertine stain damage.
Deep Cleaning
Travertine cleaning processes vary based on the surface condition and type of dirt or oil being removed. Travertine is easier to keep clean with periodic professional deep cleaning services, using non-acidic, highly-effective cleaning solutions. However, once wear sets in, creating hollows and low points where dirt can collect, your travertine can become difficult to get completely clean again. We can assist you in not only cleaning your travertine surfaces, but in keeping your travertine properly polished, maintained, and free of scratches to help make regular cleaning and care of your stone easier.
Tennessee Stone Care can remove deeply imbedded soiling, strip away years of buildup of unsightly topical treatments, remove soap film in showers, get rid of soot on fireplaces, and resolve a host of other travertine cleaning problems, leaving your stone as pristine as the day it was installed.
Stain Removal
We can remove travertine stains and travertine discolorations. Whether you are seeking guidance on how to do this yourself or want us to treat your travertine, the stain most likely can be removed.
Repairs
Do you have chipped travertine tiles? Are there cracks in your travertine floor? What about broken travertine tiles? Before you replace your travertine, consider having us provide expert travertine repair services. We can fill holes in travertine, and fix travertine cracks and chips, blending the repair site with the surrounding area, then honing and polishing it to match the finish on the rest of your travertine floor, countertop or other travertine surface.
Holes Filled
As we mentioned in the introduction, travertine comes with holes that run throughout the stone either filled or unfilled. In “unfilled” travertine these holes remain exposed for a rustic, earthy finish. As the name implies, in “filled” travertine, a color-matched material, usually epoxy, is used to fill the holes, giving the stone a smooth finish.
Tennessee Stone Care can fill holes in travertine (a process called travertine floating) to either change unfilled travertine surfaces to the smooth appearance of filled travertine or to repair filled travertine surfaces whose holes have become exposed due to time and wear. For repairs, we use matching tinted filler and blend the repair site with the surrounding area, honing and polishing it to match the surrounding finish. The process is the same for changing and unfilled surface to a filled one, but can use contrasting fill colors or matching ones to provide an array of unique choices for your finished surface.
Tile Replacement
Most damaged travertine tiles can be repaired, but sometimes it is necessary to replace a tile. We can replace your tile, using extra care to avoid damaging neighboring tiles, leveling the reinstalled tile with surrounding tiles, and matching the finish as closely as possible. Do be aware though — unless you have extra tiles on hand, the replacement tiles we find may be noticeably different. Because travertine is a natural stone, even tiles from the same quarry and variety can vary in color and appearance as time passes and the quarry line shifts.
Color Enhancing
Travertine is characterized by its neutral earthtone colors. For certain types of travertine, our skilled technicians can apply an enhancing sealer to intensify the color and enrich its natural beauty.
Scheduled Maintenance
For travertine floors with high traffic and use, routinely scheduled maintenance services are highly recommended. We can provide these services for you.