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Tips for Caring for Your Natural Stone

natural stone flooring 300x225 Tips for Caring for Your Natural Stone Natural stone can last for ages, if you take care of it properly. The day to day care isnâ€™t hard, but itâ€™s important if you want to maintain that fine finish you remember the day you bought it. A quality natural stone tile is made to last, so make it last with astute care that keeps it looking as good for your grandchildren as it looked when it was freshly installed.

Give it a once over

Clear any abrasive dirt, sand and other particles from the surface of the stone daily. Use only dust mops and gentle bristle brooms. A good once over a day will keep the floor shining perfectly. Plus, if you keep up on cleaning, itâ€™s easy each time, taking merely seconds every morning to keep the cleaned-grittiness of natural stone.

If you prefer to use a vacuum cleaner, avoid one with a beater bar. You should only use one that has suction only, as any other may damage your floor and leave abrasive marks.

Throw rugs in well traveled spaces

Entrance rugs at the entrance to well traveled areas help keep the dirt to a minimum. Place rugs in hall ways and the entrances of rooms. With the right rugs, the floor will look richer and warmer, giving the toes a soft graceful feeling if you like to pad around in your bare feet.

Control the slide

Stone floors are naturally slick. Use small furniture covers on the feet of all your furniture for safety. A cozy chair can easily go crashing in the event of wrestling children, which could result in accidents. Placing sticky edges on your furniture keeps it in place, as well as protects the surface of your floor.

Clean up spills quickly

Itâ€™s important to wipe spills up as soon as they happen, especially in the kitchen. This is especially true if the spill is acidic such as orange, tomato, or lime juice, which will tend to disrupt the surface of your floor for a short time after exposure. Stains that are left to fester gather up extra dirt which sticks to the surface and mars the floor. The longer stains are ignored, the more noticeable and permanent they can be.

It really doesnâ€™t hurt to mop your floor regularly, even several times a day with a lightly wet mop. When you keep up on the floor cleanliness, you donâ€™t have to break out a big bucket of sud water each time. Simply get the mop wet, and go over the surface. If you do this often enough, cleanliness is simple and easy. You hardly even realize you are doing it.

Keep it ecological

Always clean your floor with a biodegradable, non-toxic cleaning solution, especially if you have small children or pets. Babies get everywhere, and dogs will lick anything. You donâ€™t want your child or your pets contaminated with toxic chemicals. A good vinegar and biodegradable dish soap solution will work, giving the floors a nice lemony, vinegar scent.

As a basic rule of thumb, you shouldnâ€™t use any cleaning product from the grocery store on your stone, unless it is completely natural and biodegradable. Avoid chemical bubbles that claim to eat dirt. They may just eat the finish of your floor too.

A little bleach

Bleach works great at eradicating algae from pool and patio areas, but itâ€™s important to rinse the areas well so the bleach isnâ€™t left sitting in pools. Itâ€™s a great way to get rid of the dirt, but be sure youâ€™ve also gotten rid of the bleach when you are done.

Get your floors professionally sealed

Itâ€™s also a good idea to have your floors sealed by a professional so they can keep their natural quality for years to come.

For more tips on maintaining your natural stone floors visit our floor care section.

Marble Tile Flooring: A Beautiful Tradition

The use of marble for flooring is as old as flooring itself. From the buildings of ancient Greece to modern statues and monuments, the beautiful stone has a place in everything. But marble tile flooring can be very expensive and has a smooth, cold texture that can be a real downside in a bathroom. Additionally, it is difficult and expensive to install. With the new bathroom ceramic tiles available on the market now, does going marble really make sense?

Bathroom Ceramic Tiles

There was a time when marble was the only choice for a sophisticated bathroom. But that was when tiles were limited to glass rather than the wide range of ceramic and porcelain tiles that exist today. Modern tiles can easily rival marble tile flooring in efficiency and beauty, and the average ceramic tile is much less expensive than its marble counterpart.

Bathroom ceramic tiles are designed for durability and elegance. They are tremendously versatile and their lower cost allows you more freedom to use them in novel ways. Tiles also tend to offer a better grip than a highly polished marble surface, helping to prevent slipping after bathing or showering.

If you are really set on the marble look, you can achieve that same elegant appeal with less cost by using the marble as an accent piece. Try using a granite or marble countertop instead of re-doing the entire bathroom floor in marble. There are excellent ceramic tiles to coordinate with almost any countertop shade you could pick; why spend the money to put marble down all over the bathroom?

Of course, there are some situations where marble – and only marble – will do the job. If you have your mind truly made up, make sure that your marble supplier is responsible and willing to work with you. Some marble installers can be resistant to your questions and ideas, installing your floor the way they want to with little or no input from you. A good company will be happy to answer your questions and help you get the bathroom you really want.

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Bathroom Floor Tiles As Design Statements

Strange though it may seem, one of the first things your guests will see is your bathroom. Even if you entertain casually and never have much traffic outside the living or dining room, your friends will still need to see the restroom. Consequently, that seemingly unimportant powder room should receive just as much care and attention as the often-improved entrance hall.

But despite this crucial role, many bathrooms remain in the design dark ages. Most are covered with dated and worn bathroom floor tiles, relics of a bygone era rather than shining beacons of modern style. Toilets and plumbing fixtures are often tarnished and loose. Some full baths have remarkably dirty and mildewed showers. No matter how nice your foyer might look, no guest will be thinking of the entry hall when they enter a bad bathroom!

Luckily, today’s tile market offers many different options to help you get the ceramic mosaic tiles your bathroom deserves. These tiles provide an incredible variety of design options, everything from standard stone-finish flooring to intricate inlays. With the right company, you can go from design concept to installation quickly and efficiently. Even better, ceramic mosaic tiles are less expensive than stone and much more pleasant to walk on: where stone can sometimes grow chilly, ceramic mosaic tiles stay much more reliably at room temperature.

Ceramic Mosaic Tiles

Without a doubt, tiles are an excellent option for giving your bathroom a vibrant new look. But don’t just think of them as bathroom floor tiles; good ceramic is much more versatile. Here are just a few ways you can use a seemingly common tile to give your bathroom unexpected flair:

Create a pattern on the floor.
Vary the size of the tile while keeping the color constant.
Incorporate a tile accent.
Install tile on your walls or counters as well.
Design your own wall art to highlight a sink or architectural feature.

With so many options, ceramic tile is the clear choice for the bathroom and beyond. Check out Travertine stone tile.