The corner of the Michigan building in 2021, red brick running as one range along the long wall past three doors
Case File 373

Blending Bricked In Windows and Doors on a Michigan Wall

Windows and a door in this long brick wall had been bricked in, and the closest brick the contractor could find still read as patches. The infill was color enhanced in 2000 to bring it into the wall around it. It was photographed again twenty-one years later and certified then.

Case No. 373
Structure Flat-roofed brick building
Location Michigan
Stained August 2000
Re-photographed 2021
Elapsed 21 years, Platinum level

2000

  1. The long brick wall in 2000 before staining, with a bricked-in opening in the middle, a paler patch below the high window, a paler pier at the far end and three pale steel doors Before, 2000 View this photo larger
  2. An applicator on an extension ladder working the brick beside the double door in 2000, a van with a roof rack and a drum on a tarp in the drive below him During, 2000 View this photo larger

What was wrong

Windows and a door in this wall had been filled in with brick. The contractor found a brick that was as close as they could, the file says, and it was still not close: in the 2000 frame each fill-in reads as a paler rectangle against the wall around it, and the pier at the far end reads the same way. The mason or contractor hired the correction.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand. The file records it in one line: brick were color enhanced for a closer match. The infill units were carried toward the range of the wall around them, so the old openings stop reading as openings. The storyline is candid about the building: a rough looking building to begin with, but the staining helped quite a bit.

2021, twenty-one years on

  1. The corner of the Michigan building in 2021 with snow on the ground, red brick running as one range along the long wall past three doors, with the certification stamp in the corner After, 2021 View this photo larger

What twenty-one years prove

Same wall, same three doors. In the 2021 frame the filled openings are gone from view and the brick reads as one range from the corner to the far end. On the certification scale that is Platinum, twenty years and over. As of 2026 the work is twenty-six years old, and the 2021 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 373, 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 373, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Restoration MI (2000)
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 mason or contractor
Reason for project
Other. The form's three named reasons, complaint or problem, addition or makeover, and color change, are all left unmarked.
Issue
"Windows & door fill-ins."
What was corrected
"Brick were color enhanced for a closer match."
Storyline
"The contractor found a brick that was as close as they could. It was a rough looking building to begin with, but the staining we did helped quite a bit!"
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2020
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