The upper brick of an Indiana house in 2019, reading as one even tan and cream range
Case File 302

Staining Off Color Headers on an Indiana Home

The brick on this house, the one with the arched fan window over the front door, arrived from the plant already coated in cement to give it a new color range. Coatings like that wear off, and this one did. The company that made the brick paid to put the color back in 2007. The house was photographed again twelve years later and certified then.

Case No. 302
Structure Single-family home
Location Indiana
Stained 2007
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 12 years, Silver level

2007

  1. A ground floor window and the brick corner beside it in 2007, the wall a chalky cream and grey with bricks of clearly different tones scattered through it Before, 2007 View this photo larger
  2. The front door under its arched fan window in 2007 with the work under way, the brick of the entry arch still chalky cream and pink During, 2007 View this photo larger

What was wrong

The file explains it plainly: the brick had a cement coating on it to create a new color range, and that coating wears off. What it left behind, in the file's own words, was too many off colored headers.

It was hired by the brick manufacturer. Not the owner, not the builder. The company that made the brick treated the color of a finished house as its own problem and paid for it.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand, brick by brick. The file records the work as staining most of the off-colored headers, and it is candid about the ceiling on a wall that arrived pre-coated: we are only as good as the product we are applied on.

2019, twelve years on

  1. Looking up at the gable end of the house in 2019, two upper windows set in brick that carries one even tan and cream range, with siding in the gable above 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The arched fan window over the front door in 2019, the brick of the entry arch and the wall around it carrying one even tan and cream range, with the Brickman certified stamp in the corner of the frame After, 2019 View this photo larger
  3. Two windows with fan-louvred arch tops on the front of the house in 2019, a shrub grown up in front of them, the brick around and above them an even tan and cream 2019 View this photo larger
  4. A brick pier under the soffit in 2019, seen close enough to read each unit, the tan and cream range holding across the face and around the return 12 Years After View this photo larger

What twelve years prove

Same house, same entry, and the headers still sit in the range they were brought into. On the certification scale that is Silver, which covers ten years and over. As of 2026 the work is nineteen 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 302, 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 302, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Stickney Ct. Residence (2007)
Level
Silver. 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 were too many off colored headers."
What was corrected
"We stained most of the off-colored headers."
Storyline
"The brick used on this residence had a cement coating on it to create a new color range but this coating wears off so they hired us to recreate that color. We are only as good as the product we are applied on, so the color looked good after staining, but it could have been better had the brick not have been coated with cement."
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
More Case Studies See all case studies →
The gable end of the house in 2019 from the poolside, the stone chimney and the stone base course carrying one range of tan, gray and brown against gray stucco

Darkening Manufactured Stone Corners on a Grand Rapids Home
The whole front of the house from the driveway in 2019, the arched entry in the middle and a covered porch and balcony to the right, all in one red brick range

Matching the Entry Pillars on an Illinois Two Story Home
A two-story house after brick staining, the walls one even cream color

A Patchy New House Evened to a Single Cream

Your Project, Documented for Decades

Every job we stain enters the same discipline: photographed, revisited, re-photographed.

Request a Quote
Call Us Request a Quote