Tips and Techniques for Polishing Travertine Tile

Travertine tile is a type of tile that is greatly related to limestone. Travertine forms over thousands of years and contains patterns and colors that are a lovely addition to any home. Travertine tiles are utilized both in the floors of many homes as well as on countertops. This beautiful material works well in almost any room of the house due to the beautiful texture that is indicative of the stone coupled with the sheen that appears on nicely polished travertine tiles.

If you have purchased a home that already had travertine tile installed or if you did not receive care and maintenance tips when your tile was installed, polishing the tile can seem like a task fraught with danger. No one wants to damage such an important show piece in the home, but travertine that has lost its polished luster definitely needs maintenance. You can polish it yourself!

The location and size of the travertine tile in your home will dictate exactly how you go about this task. Should you have a huge swath of travertine or if you have it multiple rooms, you will likely want to rent a polisher to help speed up the process. If you, however, only have travertine tile in a small room like the bathroom or on counters, then the process can be accomplished a bit easier. For the remainder of the article, we will focus on this "hand polishing" process.

To begin you are going to want to make sure your tile is as clean as possible. Go over it with your stand cleaner and make doubly sure that any and all small pieces of debris are removed. This may seem ironic considering our next step is to sand, but it will help ensure that nothing is scratched into the countertop are floor underneath the sandpaper.

Start with a grit of approximately 400 and sand the tile to remove any small imperfections that may have appeared and to restore a very smooth base. I like to remove the sandpaper dust and grit after each use and then move up in sandpaper increment grits until I reach 800 - usually for this stage I will switch to an emery paper and use it to really buff the travertine and begin to restore a nice sheen - much like a nail buffer will!

After this process, you can apply a coat of sealer (be sure to pick up a sealer that works with travertine tile and/or limestone) and let it dry. Then apply a second coat to really reseal the tile after having smoothed it over with sandpaper. This process should only be repeated when necessary instead of on a regular schedule.