The front of the Iowa house in 2019, red brick running from the main house across the garage wing under one brown roof
Case File 051

Blending a New Addition Into an Iowa Brick Home

The homeowners expanded this house and could not find the brick it was built with. All of the new brick on the addition was stained to blend with the existing wall in 1997. It was photographed again twenty-two years later and certified then.

Case No. 051
Structure Addition to a home
Location Iowa
Stained 1997
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 22 years, Platinum level

1997

  1. An applicator in a blue shirt working stain into the red brick base of the addition's side wall under tan board-and-batten siding, a second man seated on the bank at left During, 1997 View this photo larger
  2. The side wall of the addition in 1997 after staining, red brick below tan siding under a hipped roof with two skylights, a ladder against the corner After, 1997 View this photo larger

What was wrong

Nothing had failed. The original brick was no longer available, so the addition went up in a different brick and the two wings did not read as one house. The form's reason is addition or makeover, and it was the homeowners who hired the blend, not a builder or a brick manufacturer.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand. The file records 100 percent of the new brick stained, and its evidence pages add the method: some brick were darkened while others were lightened for a better overall blend.

2019, twenty-two years on

  1. The front of the single-story house in 2019 from the driveway, two windows in the main wall on the left and the garage wing with its brick pier on the right, both in the same red brick under a brown shingle roof After, 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The house from further down the driveway in 2019, the long brick wall with two windows and trimmed shrubs running into the garage wing on the right After, 2019 View this photo larger
  3. The garage wing in 2019, a tan garage door between two red brick piers with a side door on the left and a board-and-batten bay on the right 22 Years After View this photo larger

What twenty-two years prove

Same house, same garage wing, one range of red brick from the original wall across the addition. The file quotes the homeowners as happy now with the blend as they were in 1997. On the certification scale that is Platinum, twenty years and over. As of 2026 the work is twenty-nine 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 051, transcribed beside the form so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.

The case study form for case 051, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Residence, Iowa (1997)
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 homeowner
Reason for project
Addition or makeover
Issue
"The brick on the new addition to the house did not match the existing brick."
What was corrected
"We stained 100% of the new brick."
Storyline
"These homeowners expanded their home, and unfortunately were unable to find the same brick previously used. They're as happy now with the blend as they were when we stained it back in 1997!"
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2020
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