Fill holes in tumbled travertine bathroom floor?

Dear Maurizio, I wish I had found this two months ago...anyway, my Turkish tumbled travertine 6" floor tiles are installed and grouted yesterday. I chose these because I liked the holes! We went out of our way to keep grout out of some of them and now after discovering your excellent site I may have made a mistake. Can I go back now and carefully regrout the holes? Should I?

 

Dear Sherrie:

Yes, you should really consider filling those holes: in a wet environment like a shower stall they will raise sanitary issues.  But I've got good news for you!

You could fill the holes with a darker latex-based caulk. In that way you could still create the “design” the open holes give you. Fool around with a couple of spare tiles to finalize the color and the technique (the cleaning of the surface of the tile around the holes before the caulk dries) before you go all out in the shower stall.

The caulk will shrink a little while it cures further enhancing the illusion of the open holes.

Now remember, it's never too early to think about the proper maintenance of your stone. The issue of what you'll be doing day in and day out to your stone is – as it should be intuitive – vastly more important than its sealing (if and when possible and/or advisable) and it's all too often neglected. As you can tell by reading many of this site's postings, you're not likely to get good information about routine care from your dealer or installer. Don't become another statistic! By logging into the Helpful Hints section of our website at:   http://www.mbstone.com/HH_promo/helpful_hints.htm , you will be able to get the short version of our maintenance guidelines at no charge. The full version of it – a 7-page document considered by many as an industry benchmark – is available in pay-per-download format in our Educational Literature section at:   http://www.mbstone.com/literature/literature.htm .  

And remember, every single penny of the cost of the literature will be used to support this site and its cause: your cause.

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Thank you  

Ciao and good luck,

Mauri z io Bertoli

 

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