The store sign standing on a concrete block wall that reads as one even buff and tan range in 2019
Case File 200

Evening Out Concrete Block at a Michigan OfficeMax

The concrete block on this store had been cleaned improperly and was holding moisture and efflorescence. It was stained in 2003 to bring the wall back into one range of color. It was photographed again sixteen years later and certified then.

Case No. 200
Structure Single-story retail store
Location Michigan
Stained October 2003
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 16 years, Gold level

2003

  1. Close view of the store's concrete block wall in 2003, the block mottled and streaked darker in patches below the sign letters Before, 2003 View this photo larger
  2. The corner where the block pilaster carrying the store sign meets the brick return in 2003, the block an uneven buff During, 2003 View this photo larger

What was wrong

The file records concrete block that had been cleaned improperly, then held moisture and threw efflorescence, the white salt bloom that surfaces when water moves through masonry. The job is filed under complaint or problem. Who paid for it is entered as Other, and the form says no more than that.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed in by hand, unit by unit. Not one flat color across the block: the units were brought back toward each other. The phrase in the file is eight words long. We gave the wall a better range of color.

2019, sixteen years on

  1. The storefront in 2019, the concrete block under the sign reading as one even buff and tan range across the elevation 2019 View this photo larger
  2. Close view of the block wall around the sign letters in 2019, the individual units sitting in one buff and tan range 16 Years After View this photo larger

What sixteen years prove

Same elevation, same block, and a range that is still the range it was mixed to. On the certification scale that is Gold, which covers fifteen years and over. As of 2026 the work is twenty-three 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 200, 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 200, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Office Max MI (2003)
Level
Gold. 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
Other
Reason for project
Complaint or problem
Issue
"Concrete block was cleaned improperly and suffers from moisture and efflorescence problems."
What was corrected
"We gave the wall a better range of color."
Storyline
Left blank on the form.
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
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Every job we stain enters the same discipline: photographed, revisited, re-photographed.

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