If you have marble in your bathroom or kitchen

[pinkmomagain]

did you have it sealed?

We are putting marble tile throughout our bathroom and from what I've read, it seems like it needs to be sealed. Did you have yours sealed when it was installed?

[gatorsmom]

Yes, but it is something you can easily do yourself. You can buy sealants at Home Depot. We have a white-ish stone island countertop that occasionally gets stained. I buff out the stain and then reapply the sealant. The people who installed our stone showed me how to do this. hth!

[pinkmomagain]

Thanks Lisa. Being this is the initial installation, I'd like to have the tile guys do it (although would prefer to not pay the price they are charging!) but will definitely watch as they do it so that I/dh can do subsequent seals moving forward.

[NancyJ_redo]

This is a timely question because I just thoroughly researched sealants about two weeks ago. We have marble, limestone and granite in various places in our house and it's time for resealing.

With my research I learned you should reseal annually. Basically, when water no longer beads on the surface, it's time to reseal.

The one sealer recommended universally on all the stone and tile websites I went to is by Miracle Sealants, it's called 511 Impregnator (yes, totally weird name for it!). http://www.miraclesealants.com/s_511_impregnator.html. I bought this at Home Depot. HD has several other sealants as well, but the 511 one is supposedly the best.

I'm just about to put that on my marble surfaces. Not that you're asking but in case anyone else is interested, limestone is much more porous so it requires a different type of sealer. This one http://www.miraclesealants.com/s_porous_plus.html. This one can also be used on marble, but it's much more expensive than the one above so best to just use it where absolutely required.

I may have just spewed out a lot of useless info, but because it's at the forefront of my brain right now I figured I'd share :p

[citymama]

Wow, this is timely indeed - my DH and I were looking for info online as our brand new travertine kitchen and bathroom floors are already starting to get messed up. We are planning to do the sealing ourselves - any advice or warnings? Are these safe to use if we have a crawler who is also mouthing everything - in other words, I'm going to assume that she will come in contact with the sealant no matter how much we try and keep her away from it.

[mackmama]

We re-seal ours every year. We do it on a warm day with the windows/doors wide open because it smells. Do not let LO near it when wet.

[gatorsmom]

Wow, this is timely indeed - my DH and I were looking for info online as our brand new travertine kitchen and bathroom floors are already starting to get messed up. We are planning to do the sealing ourselves - any advice or warnings? Are these safe to use if we have a crawler who is also mouthing everything - in other words, I'm going to assume that she will come in contact with the sealant no matter how much we try and keep her away from it.

Travertine is what we have on our kitchen island and in our bathrooms. I was really worried about the stains on the kitchen island (where we have white travertine), but with a very fine grade sandpaper you can get the marks out - as long as the stone is not a polished stone. If you use sandpaper on a polished stone the glossy finish will be rubbed right off! But if the stone is not polished, the sandpaper works great. Then I apply the sealant. I can't remember the kind we use. It was something given to us by the people who laid the countertops for us. But they said that Home Depot has a similar product. I just follow the directions on the side of the container. Honestly, I haven't re-sealed my countertops since they were installed 9 years ago, except for the white travertine on the island (red wine and some tomato sauces are hard to buff out). But we have granite on the outer countertops and red and orange travertine in our Master bath. the water doesn't pool on top of the stone, it does get absorbed to some extent and leaves prints on the stone. But once the stone dries, the prints go away, in say 2 hours. We experienced the same effect with our house in Texas 10 years ago and never had a mold or mildew problem. The stone just dries on it's own, no problem. I didn't want to use sealant because I didn't want those chemicals on our countertops or touching our bare feet in the bathrooms. Part of the appeal of stone, for me, was that it is natural, so I didn't want to mess with that. jmho.

[spanannie]

Yes, and I've also had it re-sealed.