Category Archives: Cleaning

How to refinish marble floor tiles and make your wife think youre hot stuff

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When renovating the house we purchased in 2008, we installed the marble floor tiles ourselves…This was a mistake, or rather, we made a lot of mistakes. We used 1/4″ grout spacers, used grey thinset for very light colored marble tiles (the grey thinset will show up in your grout lines), and used sanded grout (because of the 1/4″ grout spacing). After everything, all the work which was needed to scrape away the grey thinset outlining the tiles, the scratches which were produced from the sanded grout, and the lack of cleaning up the grout residue from the marble in a quick fashion left our tiles in bad shape. Really bad shape. They were now dull, had scratches, and did not reflect the finely honed polish which they were supposed to have.

Having them professionally refinished was not an option for me as im terribly cheap and did not want to concede to being defeated by lowly floor tile, so I embarked on what ended up to be one of the coolest lessons learned since starting work on the house…How to refinish marble floors for less than $100 and make them look as good as new.

So heres how you do it:

What youll need

1. Get a liter of Dia-Glo Diamond Buffing Compound for Marble (available online or any professional flooring shop). I used the “M” variant for marble ($30). I got mine from keystone tools in San Francisco (http://keystonetools.com/)

2. Get a variable speed angle grinder which uses 5/8 attachments (or if you want to do this all within 2 hours, rent a floor buffing machine from home depot pro). I had one laying around in my garage, but you can always buy one at Home Depot or Lowes and then return it after. A word of caution – you do not want to get your rpms up too fast. I had a variable speed angle grinder and kept my rpms around 5,000.

3. Get a 4″ velcro loop attachment (which uses the 5/8 fitting) to use with the angle grinder ($10). Its a little disc attachment which has little hooks on it (like velcro) to grab onto velcro disc pad attachments (also bought from keystone tools)

4. Go to Home Depot Pro and go to their tool rental section. Look for a white polyester buffing pad. It will be a big circular disc. (Costs about $6). Cut a piece of the white polyester buffing pad in a circle shape to fit the angle grinder velcro loop attachment. Stick it onto the attachment and make sure it stays put (the hooks will grab onto the polyester fibers).

5. Get a shop vacuum to suck up all the water and compound mixture.

6. Tile/Stone Sealant to finish the job and keep your tiles from getting stained and prematurely dirty.

Preparation

1. Section your floor into smaller work areas. I did small 5 x 5 ft sections to make work cleaner. I used rolled up towels around the 5′ x 5′ perimeter to limit the amount of kickback spray from the spinning motion that the angle grinder generates. If you dont do this, the milky colored spray will get everywhere.

2. Wet the section of the floor with water and cover the tiles with a nice layer of water (I found more was better as it provided lubrication for the pad). Add a small handful of buffing compound and mix thoroughly (just spread it around with your hand). Make sure the water/compound mixture is milky and pretty dissolved before buffing. USE GLOVES when doing this as the buffing compound is acidic and will dry up and irritate your skin.  I didnt and it dried my hands for 3 days. Also made everything I wore smell sour even after several washes (do not wash your work clothes with your other laundry, they will end up smelling sour too).

Refinishing

3. Use the angle grinder with the nylon pad to go over your tiles one by one. Let the angle grinder do the work and just hold the sucker steady. It will take a bit of getting used to at first, but youll get the hang of it. I spent at least 30 seconds on each tile to make sure the scrapes, scuffs, scratches were buffed down and smoothed as much as possible. Keep the grinder moving in small circles to polish the tiles evenly.

4. After you have finished the sectioned area, pour clean water over the area and mix it around making it wet again. Use a shop vac and suck it all up. Then if necessary, rinse with clean water and suck that up too.

5. Move onto the next section until every tile is done.

Cleanup

6. Use a clean wet towel and wipe your floors so you can get as much of the leftover splash and residue from the buffing compound off the floors and fixtures. Then go over your tiles once again with a dry towel.

Finishing

7. Finally, after your tiles and grout lines are dry, use a stone/marble sealer (I got a jug at home depot…$30) and seal your tiles. Two coats are sufficient and your floors will look as good as new.

My floors after polishing (I didnt have a before picture, but I can assure you there wasnt even a reflection)

How to clean the house and still make money (“be a man” also works too).

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I walked into the living room today with one task, to take down the artificial christmas tree which was so nicely de-ornamented by my wife 2 days ago. After the dismantling, stuffing, and cramming of the dismembered tree parts into the provided duffel bags, i was left with dust and needle specks all over the carpet. One task turned into two, and the vacuuming was started and completed.

Not too long after, the previously arranged meeting to sell my busted HP Laserjet 2840 off of craigslist arrived and the transaction completed. An easy $50 bucks and free “come to your house and pick up the piece of trash printer thats been sitting in the living room for the past year” service was greatly appreciated (not to mention the additional space in our living room).

So yeah, thats my quick tip for 2009. Use craigslist to offer up things you dont need or really want, but are too lazy to get rid of yourself to people who may need it for parts, decor, or just for whatever needs they may have. Offer it up for free, or for really low prices, and you might have your own CTYHAPUTPOT item service for less than 5 minutes of posting work. I do have a few suggestions when selling or doing any type of transaction off of craigslist however, so below are my simple yet effective craigslist tips:

  • Ive found things sell much quicker if theres a home taken photo, and things dont seem to sell very well with a stolen stock photo from the internet.
  • When posting your items on craigslist, make sure to use a title which includes the model name, model number, and make of the item.
  • When entering in the description for the item you are selling, be sure to outline the details of the item in terms of condition, functionality, and physical condition. More is better unless, more equates to BS.
  • Be sure to detail the conditions of sale. If you only accept cash and only want people to come to your place to get the item, mention it.
  • It is generally a good idea to meet at a plaza, shopping center parking lot, or well lit and somewhat busy meeting place. The buyer will feel more comfortable (in knowing you arent going to kill them in your house), and you safeguard your own health and safety as well.
  • Get a feel for the potential buyer by looking at clues in the email. Extremely bad grammar, offers to use a mediator, and continuing the transaction through mail is a good indicator the potential buyer may be out looking for a scam or at least, might flake out on you.
  • Dont rush into giving out your address or other contact information until you have set up a time and place for the meeting.
  • After you are satisfied with your posting, copy down the title and description into a .txt file and make note of the price you are selling it for. If the ad on craigslist expires before you are able to sell the item, just copy and paste the information from the .txt file into your repost, while lowering the price in reasonable increments. This makes reposting much less time consuming and burdensome.
  • Bring a friend to go with you when you meet the potential buyer. Its safer, more fun, and you can gloat to your friend that youve just made money on something that was worthless to you while cleaning up the clutter in your home!

These simple tips should make it a little easier in conducting any business on www.craiglist.org.

So all in all, today was a productive and decently profitable day, AND I got brownie points from my wife for tidying up the house and getting rid of useless computer clutter.