The front entry of the Wixom house in 2019, its buff brick reading as one even range around the door
Case File 110

Lightening One Discolored Area on a Wixom Home

One area of the brick on this house did not match the rest of it. The company that made the brick paid to have that area lightened and blended by hand in the autumn of 1998. It was photographed again twenty-one years later and certified then.

Case No. 110
Structure Two-story home
Location Wixom, Michigan
Stained October 1998
Re-photographed 2019
Elapsed 21 years, Platinum level

1998

  1. The rear of the house in 1998, a buff brick lower level under sage board and batten siding, with a raised deck and a willow at the right Before, 1998 View this photo larger
  2. The walkout level of the same house during the work in 1998, its buff brick close to the camera with decking stacked on the ground in front of it During, 1998 View this photo larger

What was wrong

The file puts it in eight words: one area of discolored brick on the house. Nothing had failed and nothing was dirty. One patch did not agree with the wall around it.

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 flat color over the wall: the correction on the form is lightening the brick and creating an appropriate range, so the off area was brought inside the range the rest of the brick already sat in.

2019, twenty-one years on

  1. The covered front entry in 2019, the brick at the porch and the gable end reading as one buff and tan range behind a planted bed 2019 View this photo larger
  2. The front of the house in 2019 seen through two young trees, buff brick at the porch and the lower level under cream siding 21 Years After View this photo larger
  3. The house from the foot of the driveway in 2019, the buff brick of the walkout level running the length of the side under a bed of shrubs 2019 View this photo larger

What twenty-one years prove

The form was signed in 2019, twenty-one years after the work, and the storyline on it is blunt: the eyesore was made to go away and it is still gone. 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 110, transcribed beside the document so it can be read on a phone and by a search engine.

Scan of the case study form for case 110, filled in and signed View the signed form full size
Project name
Wixom, 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
Complaint or problem
Issue
"One area of discolored brick on the house."
What was corrected
"We lightened the brick and created an appropriate range."
Storyline
"One area on the house was an 'eyesore'. Even though it was small, it was still hard to make it go away. Not only did we make it go away, it is still gone 21 years later."
Address
"Permission needed to release address"
Authorized
Donald A. Foster, signed, dated 2019
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