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| Wet grinding |
The front hall is laid in "graniglia" tile, which in English is called "terrazzo." Basically, it amounts to a bunch of crushed marble embedded in a cement that is often colored to match the marble. The material can be formed into tiles or laid as a solid floor. There are a number of industrial floors in the US that are laid in terrazzo, but it's not used as often for residential applications. Here, it is rather common. It was put in from the 1940s onwards (perhaps before, but I'm not sure), and fell out of favor in the 1990s and was widely ripped out. It's had a resurgence, though, and is popular once again.
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| Lots of shmear |
In any case, our tiling had been worn and damaged to the point that it looked like the dull "resilient tile" that used to be found in high schools in the US (the kind that often contained asbestos and was then subject to remediation). The obvious solution is to have it polished, so that was what we did.
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| These floors WERE clean |
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| Some dusting to be done |
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| Upstairs |
After the frustrations of trying to get a new workman to actually show up, our pavimentista finally arrived. He spent 2 1/2 days with his magical machine, and buffed the floor to a fine gloss. This entailed wet grinding, then filling the holes with epoxy, then dry grinding. The excitement about the dry grinding is the discovery of the dramatic chimney effect in our house. We were really made aware of it when we were walking up the alley and could see what looked like smoke coming through the boys' window; the fellow was grinding at the front door, three floors down and at the other extreme end horizontally. Yes, this did mean that we ended up with thick dust and grit everywhere. I did point out that perhaps he could have let us know that he would be sanding dry so we could have protected surfaces, but he said it was the first time this had happened, and that there was barely any visible dust where he was working (true). Crazy!
That said, the result is worth the hassle. It looks beautiful!
While he was with us, he went ahead and cleaned the old, dirty travertine ledges, as well.
Love,
Alexandra
The front hall is laid in "graniglia" tile, which in English is called "terrazzo." Basically, it amounts to a bunch of crushed marble embedded in a cement that is often colored to match the marble. The material can be formed into tiles or laid as a solid floor. There are a number of industrial floors in the US that are laid in terrazzo, but it's not used as often for residential applications. Here, it is rather common. It was put in from the 1940s onwards (perhaps before, but I'm not sure), and fell out of favor in the 1990s and was widely ripped out. It's had a resurgence, though, and is popular once again.
In any case, our tiling had been worn and damaged to the point that it looked like the dull "resilient tile" that used to be found in high schools in the US (the kind that often contained asbestos and was then subject to remediation). The obvious solution is to have it polished, so that was what we did.
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