Travertine
Achieving The Look You Want For Your Travertine
Travertine is a unique and versatile stone, suitable to a wide range of decorative styles, from rugged and rustic to welcoming old world charm to 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! Natural Stone Care can restore your travertine, not just making it look better, but making it look brand new again.
To fill or not to fill, that is the question. Travertine in its original state has naturally occurring holes throughout. Part of travertine’s unique appeal is that it is available in two distinct forms — filled and unfilled. In “filled” travertine, a color-matched material, usually epoxy, is used to fill the holes, giving the stone a smooth finish. In “unfilled” travertine the natural holes remain exposed for a rustic, earthy finish. Both filled and unfilled travertine are beautiful in their own right, and both offer their own particular challenges.
Floating Travertine
While this term may bring to mind inflatable lounge chairs or rubber duckies, travertine floating really has nothing to do with bodies of water. It is the process used 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 filler tinted to match the rest of the surface, blending the repair site with the surrounding area, then honing and polishing to achieve a uniform finish. Changing a completely unfilled surface to a filled one is basically the same process, but offers a broader array of design choices, since you are not limited to a color that matches an existing filler.
Travertine Refinishing
Refinishing is similar to floating, in that you can restore a finish that is uneven or has become dulled by wear, scratches or other surface damage, or alter the finish entirely if you’re looking for a change of pace. Natural Stone Care is well versed in the types of finishes possible, as well as experienced in the techniques required to achieve them.
Travertine Grinding / Lippage Removal
Whether you want a floor that is flush with its grout lines for easier cleaning, or need to remedy uneven tiles that can be hazardous as well as unattractive, Natural Stone Care can take care of that for you. Using state-of-the art diamond grinding technology, we can remove excess stone to create a flat, level surface . Once the uneven tiles are leveled (this is called lippage removal), the travertine is honed and polished to your desired finish.
Honing & Polishing Travertine
Natural Stone Care can hone your travertine surfaces to eliminate surface imperfections such as dull spots, scratches, etching and other wear and tear, resulting in a damage free surface that looks like new again. With the damage erased, our expert technicians can polish your travertine using the appropriate diamonds or polishing powders, achieving a honed (soft matte) finish that is warm, inviting, and velvety smooth, a gorgeous glass-like polish, or something in between that suits your taste.
Deep Cleaning Travertine
While any travertine surface can become dirty and grimy with use, unfilled travertine with its naturally varying surface texture and inherent holes can be particularly challenging once dirt has had time to accumulate in the hollows and low points. Not to worry, though, Natural 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.
Travertine Sealing
Once your travertine floors, showers, tub surrounds, walls, and other travertine surfaces are restored, we highly recommend you have your travertine sealed to help inhibit staining. Like all natural stone, travertine is naturally porous and quick to absorb staining agents. It’s true most stains can be resolved, but who wants to go to all that trouble, expense and frustration when it can easily be avoided. A thorough professional sealing is a good, inexpensive way to head stains off at the pass.
Color Enhancing Travertine
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.