A recent customer of ours contracted our crew for a foyer marble floor restoration project in preparation of selling her home. While many potential home buyers may not recognize when natural stone is dull, they will absolutely notice when your stone has the ‘wow’ factor, and they will know that your home is well cared-for.
To successfully remove all of the damage from this particular marble floor, there were a few tasks that needed to be done prior to our standard restoration process. The marble floor had something that we call lippage, better known as uneven tiles. The lippage could have been due to faulty installation or an issue with the subflooring. Regardless of the cause, the floor needed to be leveled so as not to create an uneven shine across the floor once we reached the polishing stage. To remove the lippage from the floor, we did not need to remove and replace the current tiles; instead, we used different grits of special metal diamond pads to grind down the high points of the lipped and surrounding tiles to blend with the rest of the floor.
This marble floor also had a total of approximately two feet of crack repairs required throughout the floor. We cleaned out each crack with acetone to remove any dirt build-up, then color-matched the stone and filled the cracks with the epoxy.
Now that the lippage and crack repairs had been taken care of, our technicians began our standard restoration process with multiple diamond hones to remove the scratches and etches that were making the marble floor dull. During this stage, the epoxy that was used to fill the cracks was also honed to ensure the repairs were level with the rest of the stone. They then filled the grout voids, which had occurred from years of walking on the floor, with a color-matched grout. The final stages were to polish the floor to bring back its natural luster and apply an impregnating sealer to help protect the stone from future damage. We think the before and after photos exemplify the ‘wow’ factor potential home buyers are looking for!
For additional information on your marble, granite, travertine, terrazzo or other natural stone and grout, please visit our Case Studies or Care Tips page! If you have additional questions or would like to schedule a free estimate with one of our stone care experts, please contact us today!