Marble and Other Natural Stones Increasingly Used in Fashionable Australian House Designs

Marble and natural stones play an important role in traditional and modern interior design of Australian homes and offices. Their reflective shine and natural lustre have become a centerpiece of all beautiful home designs.

Stone surfaces assume a major role in any home decor. Granite and marble surfaces for kitchens, baths and floors are still a top pick with today's home buyers. The kitchen and bath stone projects play a significant position as they are the final step in the renovation process.  Whether the material used is marble, natural stone or man-made material, the countertop holds the whole look together. The installation of the countertop is normally the most exciting part of renovation as it is like giving final touch to a beautiful painting.  

As reports of global warming pour in, the green living concept is widely accepted in home decor. Marble and natural stones are stylish and also eco-friendly. Granite, Marble, Limestone, and other natural stones are used in Kitchen Countertops, Bathroom Vanity Tops, Fireplace Surrounds, Outdoor Kitchens, Furniture Tops, Thresholds, Shower Seats, and Sills etc.

And lastly, stones are effectively used to enhance the outdoor landscape also. Stone flooring on patios, stepping stone pathways etc. can be great additions to your outdoor decoration.

The Marble Man is Australia's Number One Marble, Granite, Travertine, Stone Benchtop and Tile Restoration Specialist. They will do their very best to provide you with professional, 5 star maintenance service and effective stone care solutions.

Marble or stone surfaces need to be protected to keep their natural beauty. Sealing, polishing and cleaning are to be carried out professionally, applying latest techniques and technology. The Marble Man technicians will repair or restore your precious stone with great care and will make every effort to return your stone surface to its natural looking best.

Contact them now:

FREECALL 1300 627 626

EMAIL: info@themarbleman.com.au

Keywords used in this article: cleaning marble floor in Sydney, marble decor Australia, home decor Australia, marble stone restoration Brisbane, granite cleaning Gold Coast, 

Ask the Experts and Get to Know Your Stone for Ideal Preventative Stone Care

It’s good to have some understanding of the geological classification and composition of natural stone surfaces for you to select the proper cleaning products and follow the correct maintenance procedures. Be in touch with reputable stone care professionals in Australia to know the characteristics of natural stone- its limitations and usual longevity, precautions to avoid wear and damage, whether it is soft, hard, porous or easily scratched and what chemicals will affect it.

Your stone surfaces – marble or other natural stone - should be treated on a daily and long-term basis and they also need professional resealing, repolishing or deep cleaning to get the longest life and preserve the beauty.

Sealing is a common step taken on some stones as an extra precaution against staining. Have your stone surface professionally sealed once it has been installed. Sealing with a penetrating sealer which soaks into the stone will help prevent staining, will reduce a build up of moisture and will allow easier cleaning. Topical sealers that rest on top of the stone can encourage moisture to accumulate under the surface and can change the look of the stone and are therefore not recommended.

Avoid placing acidic or chemical products on the stone as these can etch or stain (especially marble and limestone) the stone surface. Wine, juice, vinegar, milk, tea and coffee can etch some stone surfaces so the use of coasters is recommended. Soil and water trapped under pot plants can cause mildew and staining. High alkaline products such as soap, shampoo, perfume and aftershave can stain or etch. All spills must be cleaned up immediately.

Use a clean cotton cloth or mop to clean or polish the stone surface as these are gentle on stone and will not scratch it. The Microfibre Mop is ideal. If scouring is necessary, use only professionally recommended scouring products such as the Scrub-a-dub, and follow the directions given by The Marble Man stone care professionals. Using other scourers will scratch the stone and remove the glossy surface. Change the water regularly when using rinsing cloths.

Avoid wearing shoes on polished surfaces as even the smallest amount of grit on the bottom of a shoe will scratch a stone surface. Removal of shoes will prolong the life of a polished floor. If this is not possible then a good quality doormat is recommended to remove as much excess dirt and grit as possible. It takes up to 4 steps on each foot to remove grit from the bottom of shoes.

Place soft pads under furniture such as felt, as any slight movement of furniture, especially chairs, will cause scratching on the stone surface. Clean felt pads will help avoid this. Always lift furniture when moving it and DO NOT drag. Chairs are the biggest cause of damage to stone floors when they do not have pads on the bottom of the legs.

The Marble Man Advantage 

The natural stone surfaces used in your home or property make it stand apart from the rest by adding to its elegance and resale value. However, a dull looking stone tile will badly affect the look and feel of a room decor. Your stone deserves to be looking its best, and The Marble Man can give you a FREE Stone Care Evaluation. Take the frustration out of cleaning your dull, stained or worn marble floors today; give the experts a call today on 1300 627 626. You may also visit their website and send them some pictures of your stone tiles that need servicing.

Well Maintained Marble Makes Your Home or Property Stand Apart from the Rest

Marble is often used in flooring to enhance the home decor. With all its whirling patterns and shade variations, the marble surface has a refreshing and inspirational look and feel, that no other material (concrete, wood etc.) can claim.  But one thing to keep in mind that while laying the marble tiles, one should always use matching patterns on the floors, walls etc. While replacing a marble tile, it is very important to use one from the same original batch.

Marble, like most natural stone tiles, needs quality maintenance. It must be sealed and cleaned regularly with the help of professionals such as The Marble Man. Our top-notch restoration procedures bring out the beauty and detail in marble surfaces.

For sealing, The Marble Man team uses several different sealers to protect your marble floors. Sealing is a must have investment in the future longevity of your new or existing marble floor. We offer a huge range of sealing products to suit your requirements; featuring: Wet look enhancing sealers; Penetrating sealer for marble, limestone, travertine; Penetrating sealer for natural granite; Penetrating sealers for sandstone; Penetrating sealers for concrete.

For cleaning your marble surface, use only a mild detergent solution (a pH-neutral dish soap or clear ammonia diluted with water) or better go for a Marble Man product specially designed for marble. We use advanced cleaning methods involving chemical, abrasion, and heat treatment.

Never set your drink down on a marble surface (it will leave a stain if the marble surface was not sealed) and wipe up any spills immediately as they can stain or etch your costly marble because it has a porous surface. Marble is much softer than granite and wears down much easier as well. Handle it with care!

Honing & Polishing: Marble floors with high-traffic areas eventually turn dull when natural crystal patterns within the stone erode from abrasion of dirt, sand and shoes. Honing is a mix of repair and polishing done on a marble surface to bring back its sheen.

Polishing gives marble its luster and for that The Marble Man uses the cleaning, repairing and honing procedures. We use the latest diamond abrasive technology, polishing compounds and a dustless grinding system to return the beautiful natural reflection, and smooth finish to your marble. 

Your stone floor is what makes your home or property stand apart from the rest so it deserves to be looking its best. Take the frustration out of cleaning your dull, stained or worn marble floors today.  We will come and give you a FREE Stone Care Evaluation valued around $300. Don’t let anyone else touch your floor; it deserves the best professional stone care in the market! Call now: 1300 627 626, or send us some snaps of your stone surface through our Website.

Get the Natural Gloss Back to Your Tired Looking Marble and Other Stone Surfaces

The Marble Man polishes, seals and repairs all stone surfaces. 

There is not much point having beautiful marble or other stone surfaces if they don’t look great.  Here’s what one of our valued customer writes, “Well I have marble kitchen benches that are 5 years old and I’ve just had them re-honed and polished, so let me tell you what you need to know.” She is from DIY Decorator. She further wrote, “I called The Marble Man in Brisbane to re-hone and polish my marble kitchen benches.  Here’s what they did….” She was pretty happy about the outcome that she put the Before & After pictures of her stylish kitchen in her blog article.

The most common maintenance required to stone is to have the surface polished occasionally to bring the natural gloss back to the surface. Polishing of marble and stone floors and benchtops can make the difference between a dull tied bathroom or floor and a brand new looking stone surface.

At The Marble Man, we use several different polishing techniques to produce amazing results to tired looking marble and stone surfaces. Does your marble or Stone look Dull, Worn, Stained or Scratched? Need it polished and looking like new again? YES

The Marble Man provides 5-Star service on Polishing Marble and Stone Benchtops, Floors and Bathrooms.

Marble Polishing Guarantee

We offer an 8 point guarantee to showcase our quality and level of service.

Marble and Stone Polishing

Our technical stone restoration team extends a huge range of polishing systems to produce many different finishes depending on your requirements.

Kitchens and Vanity Benchtops

Marble or Stone benchtop Polishing

Marble or Stone Benchtop Honing

Floor tiles

Marble or Stone Floor Polishing

Marble or Stone Floor Honing

Bathrooms

Marble or Stone Shower Polishing

Marble or Stone Wall Polishing

Marble or Stone Vanity Polishing

The Marble Man operates in Gold Coast|Brisbane|Sunshine Coast|Byron Bay |Sydney| Canberra| Newcastle|Central Coast. Our customers recommend us as Australia's Number One Marble, and Stone Restoration Specialists.

Stone Care

It is a common misconception that natural stone surfaces are pretty easy to maintain as they are strong materials, but the real thing is that even though stones are robust and highly resistant, they require regular maintenance. Most natural stones are porous like our skin and this makes them vulnerable too. The maintenance needs are professional cleaning, sealing and polishing. And after professional restoration, your stone surfaces will look fresh and new for six months to one year by protecting against moisture and harmful spills.  

The Marble Man has a team of experienced technicians who receive hands on, practical training on stone care processes and are kept up to date with the latest techniques and technology.

Call us on 1300 627 626 to arrange an obligation free stone restoration quote, or even better email us some photos of the Marble/Stone surface so we can advise of the results we can achieve.

Know Your Natural Stone - Commercial Care & Cleaning

Basalt Paving

The most popular igneous stones used in building construction are granite and basalt, which means that they are cooled from the magma stage of molten rock, minerals and gases. Both contain large quantities of quartz and silica, but it is the heavy metals such as iron and magnesium that give the stones their dark colour.

Granite

Granite is great stuff. It's coarse-textured rock in which individual mineral grains are easily visible. Granite is strong and extremely durable. It mainly contains the minerals potassium, feldspar and quartz with small amounts of mica. Most of the continent is made of granite.

Granite is one of the hardest, most popular building materials used in the world and is commonly used indoors for kitchen benchtops, bathroom vanities, floors and furniture. Outdoors it is used in large structures such as bridges, monuments, retaining walls and steps and in large public floor areas due to its solid character and ability to withstand deterioration. Granite is usually used as a slab rather than a tile, so its weight must be considered when choosing an application.

Polished granite is hard wearing, easily maintained, heat, chip, bacteria, fire and scratch resistant and is not affected by acidic liquids such as juice, coffee, tea and wine when treated with a good quality penetrating sealer. Granite has an ageless beauty, is longer wearing than manmade stones and will retain its colour and finish longer than other stones.

Colours are usually shades of black, grey, brown, red, pink and yellow, which are determined by the minerals trapped when the stone is forming.

Basalt

Because the magma comes out of the earth and cools very quickly, the minerals have very little opportunity to grow. Basalt is thus extrusive and very fine grained.Basalt is also known as bluestone. It was traditionally used for cobbled roads and laneways due to its durability and because water drained away from the surface efficiently allowing it to dry quickly. It was also popular due to its texture, which made it a non-slip surface. It is now commonly used in outdoor areas for paving, stairs, exterior wall cladding, ponds, landscaping, pathways and indoors for countertops, walls and floors. 

Colours are usually blue-grey, green-grey, grey and black.

Formation & Characteristics of Igneous Stones

Igneous stones are exposed to extreme heat, hence the name ‘igneous’, which comes from the Latin word ‘ignius’ meaning fire. Igneous stone is either ‘intrusive’ or ‘extrusive’. ‘Intrusive’ stone is formed underground where rock located up to 40km under the earth’s surface melts at temperatures of up to 900 Degree C and becomes magma. The magma rises and cools slowly, trapping gases and minerals, and eventually solidifying into stone that has large crystals and a coarse texture. Granite is ‘intrusive’ stone.

‘Extrusive’ stone such as Basalt develops above the earth’s surface. It is formed from lava that flows from volcanos on to the earth’s surface and into the sea, or from volcanos under the sea. The lava settles on the earth or on the ocean floor and cools. The faster cooling process, due to the lower temperature at the earth’s surface and under the ocean, encourages smaller crystals to form.

Stone Restoration Service by The Marble Man 

It is a common mistake to think that granite and basalt stones are pretty easy to maintain as they are made of strong natural stone quarried from the mountain ranges. But the real thing is that even though they have a strong surface and are highly resistant, it needs regular maintenance that includes cleaning, sealing and polishing as per the usage. These stone surfaces can be maintained to look as new for six months to one year by protecting against moisture and harmful spills.  

We have a team of experienced technicians who receive hands on, practical training on stone care processes and are kept up to date with the latest techniques and technology. We provide service at: Gold Coast|Brisbane|Sunshine Coast|Byron Bay|Sydney|Canberra|Newcastle|Central Coast.

If you would like us to inspect your stone and get advice on its repair or restoration, an experienced team member will visit at a time convenient to you and provide a no obligation, FREE Quote. Call our office today on 1300 627 626 or Email us to book your onsite evaluation.

Order Your Christmas Stone Restoration & Cleaning with Discounts

It's Christmas time. 
Did you have your natural stone surfaces restored to welcome the guests?

In Australia, we have Christmas in midsummer. People celebrate their Christmas day having picnics on the beach, and surfing or spending their time playing cricket, football or other outdoor games. So Santa Claus is coming to beach but before that, he gives the reindeer a rest and uses kangaroos for his fun ride!

In place of the usual fur-lined red suit, Santa Claus rocks swim trunks and sunglasses. Santa also gets numerous letters filled with gift ideas from all the youngsters, and on Christmas night he brings gifts to all good girls and boys – the interesting thing here is that six kangaroos will be found pulling his sledge in the night sky.

Many offices have pre-Christmas lunches or parties on Christmas Eve although these events may occur as early as the 2nd week of December. People hang wreaths on their front doors and sometimes go out Christmas carol singing on Christmas eve. People also decorate their houses and gardens with Christmas Trees and Christmas lights.

Preparations for Christams starts in October or even earlier; all the shopping, renewal of home decor etc. are done well in advance. Being Australia's Number One Marble, Granite, Travertine, Stone Benchtop and Tile Restoration Specialist, The Marble Man used to have busy time these days. Because we give special discounts for Christmas, many households take this as an opportunity to repair or restore the whole marble or stone surfaces in their house.  

At The Marble Man,  we mainly do stone Polishing ( Benchtops, Floors and Bathrooms), Sealing (Kitchens and vanities, Floors and Bathrooms), Repairs (Kitchen Benchtops and Floors) and Cleaning (chemical, abrasion, and heat methods are applied according to the type of the marble or natural stone surfaces).  

To help you best we recommend that you phone us to discuss your stone surface restoration job or even better email us some photos of the material so we can advise of the results we can achieve. 

Get a free stone restoration quote:

Phone: 1300 627 626.

Website: The Marble Man

7 Tips to Keep Your Natural Stone Surfaces As Good As New

If your lovely natural stone surfaces are not properly maintained, everyday wear and tear can badly affect their appealing qualities. Natural Stone is delicate and porous, so it easily absorbs spilled liquids and oils causing staining. In order to preserve the beauty of marble, granite and other natural stones and also to get the longest life, one has to be very careful and observe the following stone care and maintenance tips:

• It’s good to use coasters under all glasses, while you serve alcohol or citrus juices. Acids in our common foods and drinks can etch the natural stone surface.

• Avoid placing hot items directly on the stone surface. Even though many stones can withstand heat, make it a habit to use trivets or mats under hot dishes.

• Spills are to be removed immediately. Don’t wipe, only blot the spill with a paper towel. Flush the area with water only after the spill is completely removed. Residues from cooking oils and everyday food spills, as well as hairspray or other cosmetics are harmful to natural stone. Frequently clean interior floors with warm water and a clean, non-abrasive dry dust mop. Sand, dirt and grit do the most damage by scratching the delicate stone surface.

• Employ only neutral, pH-balanced Cleaners formulated for natural stone. Never use vinegar, lemon juice or cleaners that contain acid such as bathroom cleaners, grout cleaners or tile cleaners on your precious natural stone surface.

• Use rugs at door entrances to avoid sand, dirt and grit coming in contact with stone surfaces. This simple step can save your stone floor from scratching.  

• Natural stone surfaces must be protected with a penetrating sealer to maintain their natural beauty. Sealing is a must have investment in the future longevity of your new or existing stone surfaces.

• Particular care is to be given to your natural stone in the bath or other wet areas. Hard water or soap scum can damage the sheen of stone surfaces. First ensure that the sealing is intact in the area. Remove the Soap Scum on a regular basis using a non-acidic scum remover. 

For deep stains and etch marks, we recommend professional refinishing that’ll only restore the fresh, new look and feel of your benchtops or tile floors. There is not much point having costly marble or stone surfaces if they don’t look great! For detailed information about stone maintenance, visit our Website or call us now on 1300 627 626 for a free stone restoration quote.