Polishing a marble table top.
A dining or coffee table takes glasses, wine, coffee and the odd dragged bowl, and it shows all of them. Whether it needs a clean or a restoration depends on what has happened to the stone.
Look at the table in daylight before reaching for a product. Dull rings and cloudy patches where drinks sat are etching. Lines you can feel are scratches. A muted shine across the whole top is usually residue. Each wants a different fix, and treating all three as a shine problem is how spray polishes disappoint.
Start clean
A neutral stone cleaner and a soft microfibre cloth, then dry it fully. No vinegar, glass cleaner, cream cleanser or degreaser. If the top now looks clean but flat, polishing will help. If the pale rings are still there, they are not dirt; the surface has been changed by acid and no cleaner reaches that.
What is reasonable at home
A narrow lane. Mild overall dullness, very light haze, no deep scratches and no edge damage might respond to a polishing powder made for calcite stone, tested on an inconspicuous area and worked gently. Expect improvement, not a factory finish, and stop after one careful attempt. Working one spot too hard leaves an uneven sheen that shows from across the room. Baking soda, abrasive pads, multipurpose sprays and wax all make it worse; wax in particular traps grime and has to be stripped before the stone can be treated properly.
How the table is restored
The top is assessed for the marble, the finish, the etching and scratching, and any coatings or old repairs. Where the wear is moderate the surface is honed with fine diamonds to take off the damaged layer and level the finish, then polished back to clarity, or left honed if that is the table's finish. Edges, corners and profiles are refined to match, because a table can look right from one angle and uneven from another when they are not. It is done in place, in the room, with the floor and anything nearby protected.
Etch or scratch, and why it matters
Etching is chemical; scratching is physical. Light etching sometimes lifts with a compound; widespread etching is honed and re-polished. Fine scratches blend out in polishing; deep ones need more refinement first. A table with both, which is most tables, does not respond to spot treatment.
Seal it afterwards
A penetrating sealer slows how fast a spill gets in and is worth having on any table that meets drinks. It does not stop etching, so coasters stay.
Ongoing care is placemats, coasters, spills wiped when they happen, and nothing metal or wet left sitting on the stone overnight.
On this site
Related questions.
Can etched marble be restored, or does it need replacing?
Etched marble can be restored in place, and replacement is almost never the right answer. Etching is a thin layer of the polished surface dissolved by acid. It is not a stain and it does not go deep. The mark is honed off with diamond abrasives and the area is re-polished to match the rest of the top. On a benchtop that is usually a couple of hours of work, done on the bench with the kitchen protected. Deep etching that has left a visible dip takes more honing and blends less perfectly, and that is exactly the sort of case we cut a test patch for before committing. Replacing a benchtop means a new slab, templating, fabrication, removal, plumbing and a splashback, and weeks without a kitchen. Restoring it is a fraction of that.
How long does a bathroom take?
Most bathrooms are one long day, and we need the room for the duration. Floor, vanity and shower are done in the same visit with one set-up, which is why quoting the room together is cheaper than quoting the surfaces separately. If a second coat of sealer is called for, we come back briefly the next morning. The shower waits for the sealer to cure. We give you the exact window before we leave.