Before
The Floor areas were definitely in a need of a deep clean, but the shower required some serious attention. Here are some pictures to demonstrate the state of the tiles on the first visit.
Travertine can make beautiful flooring, but there certainly are difficulties with it. The stone naturally have a so-called honeycomb structure. Which means there are holes in it. You can buy it in different grades and with different finishes. Can be filled or unfilled. Tumbled, honed or polished. But regardless of all this, more than likely that in the main traffic areas there will be new holes appearing over time. These can be filled with grout, resin or hard wax depending on a number of factors.
Floor
In this particular case, the tiles were filled with honed finish wich gives a low sheen to the floor. Luckily there were not too many holes, but typically they were in the worst locations. I did fill them with a good quality epoxy resin, then honed the areas to match the level of sheen on the rest of the floor. When this was done, I could start the cleaning process. After cleaning the tiles, I concentrated on the grout lines to achieve the best possible result. Once I finished with the process, I could re-hone the entire area.
Travertine Tiled Shower
The next challenge was the shower cubicle. In here apart from the cleaning of the general built up dirt and soapy residues I had to deal with mould as well. To restore the floor and wall tiles in the shower cubicle nearly took as long as the restoration fo the whole kitchen floor but it did worth it.
When all areas were as clean as possible I had to leave it to dry overnight. On my return, I have checked if the tiles are dry enough to take the sealer. My damp meter showed that I can carry on sealing as both the floor and the walls were dry enough. I applied a good quality impregnating sealer to protect the tiles from staining and help daily maintenance.
After
My customer was over the moon with the results I could achieve. You can see on the pictures bellow that the floor and the shower look great now.
