We were recently asked to renovate a Travertine tabletop at a property in the market town of Newbury. This post follows on from a previous article I published about the renovation of their garden room floor tiles where the table was situated. If you haven’t seen that post do take a minute to take a look using the following link: Terracotta Tiled Garden Room Floor Deep Cleaned and Sealed in Newbury.
If you recall the client asked me to do something to improve the condition of the stone table that had sat in the conservatory for many years and was stained with water stains, ring marks and the dirt from the many plants that had been sat on it.
Cleaning and restoring a Travertine Tiled Tabletop
The travertine table had been cracked and was heavily stained due to years of standing water from various pots. So, after cleaning the conservatory floor I turned my attention to the table and started the renovation process using a strong dilution of Tile Doctor Pro-Clean so I could see the full extent of damage. Being a tabletop, this had to be done by hand, allowing the solution to soak in and then scrubbing it in with a scrubbing brush. Due to the height of the table, it was a bit awkward to use the hot water encapsulation system to extract the dirt after cleaning, but I managed.
The next job was to fill the crack using a two-part epoxy resin designed especially for this sort of work and colour matched to the table. This was then allowed to set before smoothing out with a set of handheld burnishing blocks of different grits.
Sealing a Travertine Tiled Tabletop
Once the resin had dried hard the table was burnished using an extended set of diamond encrusted pads starting from a coarse 100-grit all the way to a fine 3000-grit leaving the table with a polished look. Naturally I couldn’t use my floor buffer for this, so I had to use smaller 6-inch pads fitted to a hand buffer. The pads are applied with water for lubrication and the soiling rinsed off as before using the encapsulation system.
Once the Travertine had dried out, I sealed it with Tile Doctor Colour Grow to enhance the colours and textures of the stone. This is an impregnating sealer that works by soaking into the stone occupying the pores and thereby keeping any dirt or liquids on the surface where they can be easily cleaned away.
The Travertine table was completely transformed by the cleaning and polishing and needless to say my client was very happy with the outcome and was sure his friends would be impressed! For maintenance of the table I recommended the use of Tile Doctor Stone Patina Spray. This is a spray-and-buff cleaner that is designed to enhance the natural beauty and lustre of polished stone.
Source: Travertine Tabletop Cleaning Solutions and Restoration Services in Berkshire
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