Palace Hotel
San Francisco, SF, California
Repair and Restoration of Decorative Marble Mosaic Flooring in a Historic Hotel
The Palace Hotel in San Francisco was the Ritz of its era, and during the most recent renovation, the marble mosaic floors in the famous Pied Piper Room and adjacent dining room were repaired and refinished practices that have been around for centuries.
Wikipedia Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_Hotel,_San_Francisco
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Bringing the marble mosaic floors of this landmark back involved repair, infill and refinishing of the decorative stone surface. |
The historic marble mosaic floor was originally assessed as being ceramic tile, but close examination revealed the true nature of the flooring material. Old plumbing penetrations were removed and the repair process begun to replace the missing historic fabric. |
Fortunately the owners had saved significant quantities of salvaged tesserae, making the potential problem of matching the original material a non-issue. |
Installation of salvaged marble pieces was based upon extending the original design by extrapolation. |
Final installation was a tedious and exacting process, utilizing over 20 different colored stones. |
After all tesserae were installed, the area of repair was carefully ground down by hand using small high speed grinders until it was less than 1/16" inch above the original floor profile. |
Final resurfacing was completed using planetary-motion floor machines equipped with diamond abrasives, followed by the application of a penetrating water- and oil-repellant sealer. |