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What to Do When Your Travertine Becomes Old, Worn, and Stained

Installing travertine in a home can completely transform the space into something elegant, timeless, and very luxurious. Over time, however, your travertine can start to lose its once luxurious luster. It can start to look dull and dingy, which will age the floor and the space it’s in.

Travertine happens to be one of the softer natural stones, which makes it prone to getting scratched by furniture, hard debris that is tracked in on shoes, and even scratched by cleaning tools if you aren’t careful. Stains can also show up a lot easier. So, if regular basic cleaning is no longer doing the trick, and you think it’s time for a deeper cleaning, then there are a few tips you can keep in mind.

Set Up a Regular Cleaning Schedule

If your travertine isn’t too bad yet, this is a great time to set up a regular cleaning schedule. Unfortunately, travertine is one of those stones that requires a lot of maintenance on a regular basis. It’s not the type of flooring you install and just forget about. And when liquids do spill on the floor, they need to be cleaned immediately or you can bet they will stain. When you clean up spills, you will also need to blot so you don’t push the liquid into the stone further.

Also in this regular maintenance schedule should be sealing the travertine. This should be done on a yearly basis and will help to prevent stains from occurring.

Use Cleaning Products That Are Safe for Travertine

As you can probably guess, travertine is very finicky when it comes to which cleaning products are used. If you pick the wrong products your floors will come out looking worse than when you started. Some of the products that you want to avoid using are bleach, vinegar, and ammonia, as these will damage the stone. Basically anything that has acid in it will end up staining and destroying the stone.

The type of cleaning product you do choose should be based on the finish of your travertine. The typical finishes are shiny, matte, and textured.

How to Properly Mop the Floor

Mopping should be part of your regular cleaning regime and should also be the main way in which you deal with stains, dirt, and grime. You can use plain warm water and a soft mop. Make sure the mop is damp, not wet, as you don’t want all that water to get absorbed into the stone causing more issues.

If you need to disinfect the floor, you can use a tablespoon of mild, colorless, non-acidic dish soap in the bucket of water. Make sure you follow up with just plain water.

Call on the Experts

If you’ve given the tips above a try and still find the travertine is looking less than ideal, it may be time to call in the professionals. Professional travertine tile cleaning can be done by a company such as Fabric Masters, who have all the latest and most effective cleaning techniques and tools available.

The professionals can not only clean, but they can also restore and even refinish severely worn travertine. By the end of the process, your floors will be looking brand new again and it will brighten up the space completely.

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