The Carlisle house from the driveway in 2019, its brick one even cream and tan range across the garage bays
Case File 186

Pulling Off Color Brick Back Into Range on a Carlisle Home

The brick on this single-story house went up blotchy, with a lot of units well outside the range. The company that made the brick paid to have it corrected rather than torn off. It was photographed again twenty-one years later and certified then.

Case No. 186
Structure Single-story ranch home
Location Carlisle, Ohio
Stained December 1998
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 21 years, Platinum level

1998

  1. An outside corner of the house in 1998, the brick a patchy mix of pink, grey and pale tan units that do not sit in one range Before, 1998 View this photo larger
  2. An applicator working stain across the side elevation of the house in 1998, the run of brick beside him already lighter than the wall beyond During, 1998 View this photo larger

What was wrong

The file puts it plainly: there was a lot of off colored brick that did not match the range throughout the house. Nothing had failed and nothing was dirty. The units did not agree with each other.

The brick manufacturer hired the work, not the owner and not the mason. A brick company treated the color of a finished house it had supplied as its own problem, and paid for staining over tear-out.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand, unit by unit, in both directions at once: the file records lightening and darkening a large amount of brick. The blotchy areas were pulled back into the range of the units around them, so the walls still read as a blend rather than one flat color.

2019, twenty-one years on

  1. The front of the house from the driveway in 2019, the garage bays, the entry and the hipped roof over one even cream and tan brick range 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The covered front entry in 2019, the brick at the porch and the return wall reading as one blend of cream, buff and soft pink 2019 View this photo larger
  3. The end wall of the front room in 2019, its window and brick standing behind a clipped hedge, with the Brickman certification stamp over the lawn 2019 View this photo larger
  4. The garage bays at close range in 2019, the brick an even mix of cream, tan and pale pink under a darker soldier course 21 Years After View this photo larger

What twenty-one years prove

Same house, same brick, and a blend that still holds together from the driveway. On the certification scale that is Platinum, which covers twenty years and over. As of 2026 the work is twenty-eight years old, and the 2019 certification is the most recent record on it.

The signed file

Every certified job gets the same form, signed on the day someone goes back to the building. This is the one for case 186, transcribed beside the scan so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.

Scan of the case study form for case 186, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Colonial Dr. Carlisle (1998)
Level
Platinum. The scale runs Bronze at seven to nine years, Silver at ten and over, Gold at fifteen and over, Platinum at twenty and over.
Hired by
The brick manufacturer
Reason for project
Complaint or problem
Issue
"There was a lot of off colored brick that did not match the range throughout the house."
What was corrected
"We had to lighten and darken a large amount of brick."
Storyline
"We removed the blotchy off colored areas throughout the house. 21 years later, this project looks great!"
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
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