The front gables of a two-story brick house in Novi, Michigan in 2019, the brick reading as one red and tan range across both of them
Case File 097

Lightening Dark Brick Sections on a Novi Home

Sections of the brick on this house came in darker than the rest of it. The company that made the brick paid to have those sections lightened and blended by hand, two weeks before Christmas in 1998. It was photographed again twenty-one years later and certified then.

Case No. 097
Structure Two-story home
Location Novi, Michigan
Stained December 1998
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 21 years, Platinum level

1998

  1. The main gable of the house in 1998 under a bare winter sky, the brick running pale tan and pink with darker units gathered low on the wall, a wreath hung below the arched window During, 1998 View this photo larger
  2. Two gables of the house in 1998 with a ladder still standing against the wall, the brick reading as one red and tan range across both of them After, 1998 View this photo larger

What was wrong

The file puts it in sixteen words: this house had sections of dark brick that did not match the rest of the house. Nothing had failed and nothing was dirty.

It was hired by the brick manufacturer, not the homeowner and not the mason. A brick company paid to put the color right on a house that was already finished.

What was done

Mineral stain, brushed on by hand, unit by unit. Not one color over the whole house: the dark sections were lightened until they sat inside the range the rest of the brick was already in. The work went on two weeks before Christmas.

2019, twenty-one years on

  1. The front of the house in 2019 from the garden, the brick holding one red and tan range across the tall gable, the arched entry and the wing beyond 2019 View this photo larger
  2. An outside corner of the house in 2019 above the terrace, the brick carrying the same red range across both faces and around the pier 21 Years After View this photo larger
  3. The gable end of the house in 2019 seen past a maple, the wall one range of red and tan with darker headers scattered through the courses 2019 View this photo larger
  4. The gable end wall from close in 2019, the brick even from the window heads to the eaves with darker headers running through the courses 2019 View this photo larger

What twenty-one years prove

Same house, same brick, and one range running across the whole of it. 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 097, transcribed beside the document so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.

The case study form for case 097, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Novi, MI Residence (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
Left blank on the form
Issue
"This house had sections of dark brick that did not match the rest of the house."
What was corrected
"We had to lighten and blend the dark sections of the house."
Storyline
"We pushed our process/product to the limit on this house. We stained this house in Michigan just two weeks before Christmas. What a great project that has lasted over 21 years!"
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
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