Our Coverings 2014 Speaker Blog Series continues with a guest post from Rawi Tabbah, a specialist in the restoration of natural stone surfaces and President of International Stoneworks, Inc.

The process of stone restoration is not nearly as straightforward as it may seem. The simple process of polishing floors and countertops is just the beginning. At International Stoneworks, we pride ourselves in thinking outside the box in solving our clients’ needs. It is the process of going that extra mile in solving these challenging stone restoration projects that we will explore in our session at Coverings.
In our session, “The Essentials of Stone Restoration,” we will be sharing stone restoration and maintenance cases that we have experienced in the field for you to learn from and apply to your own businesses. We will also focus on some of the most complicated and challenging cases we have tackled and walk you through how they were solved.
Here is a preview of one of those cases:
OFFICE BUILDING MARBLE RESTORATION AND MAINTENANCE
Challenge:
A busy Houston office building had been using a wax system on their marble floors for many years. In order to lower maintenance costs, we suggested that they strip all of the floors and naturally polish the marble. While this would mean a high upfront cost, it would soon be made up by the decline in maintenance needs. On top of it all, it would solve the “yellowing” problem they were seeing as well.
Solution:
The customer was sold on the fact that the floor would only need to be stripped once and that they would not have to worry about constantly buffing out scuff marks and sealer scratches. We restored the floor by stripping off all the wax and used a diamond-grinding system to polish the marble. Ever since our initial restoration, we have been maintaining the traffic areas of this building for over 10 years with polishing compounds. We not only sold them the restoration process, but a maintenance program as well.
This is just a sneak preview of what we will be discussing. Come prepared to learn about the technical side of stone restoration as well as how to bid these projects. We also want you to share your ideas, challenges, and solutions.
Additionally, in preparation for the show, we will be hosting a Tweet Chat with Coverings on the importance on stone restoration and maintenance, the current trends in stone finishing, and how you can be as eco-friendly as possible in taking care of stone. Please join us on March 25 from 2:00-3:00pm ET using the hashtag #Coverings25. Please follow your hosts @Coverings and @IntlStoneworks and get ready to learn!

Rawi Tabbah will be speaking on Thursday May 1 at Coverings 2014 in Las Vegas from 9:15-10:45am in the session “The Essentials of Stone Restoration.” Click here for more information on Rawi’s session and to view the full list of Coverings 2014 conference sessions. Register today for free to access all the education and exhibitors at Coverings 2014.