Tudors & Stucco

The stucco has been happening for a few weeks around the house, so even though we've been severely delayed by the inside, things are still moving along on the outside!

It's taking much longer than I would have thought but then I am not two stories up in -10C weather trying to stucco the side of a house! However, the whole house now looks like a giant smurf, because it's completely tarped over. Stucco needs above zero temperatures to cure properly, so the heaters are under the tarp. Here I was worried how cold they would be working in the middle of winter until one day I was there to approve a stripe configuration and it's like a greenhouse under there!

For the stucco, first the styrofoam went up, then the 'scratch coat'.

Then we had sketch the 'stripes' or bands to onto a drawing of the house for the stucco team.

We want the mock-Tudor look as it fits in with the neighbourhood and we like it. However, not the classic white & black nor the typical beige & dark brown.

Originally the architect had done this for us but the labour is prohibitively expensive, so we re-designed the pattern to be less stripes ( and therefore less money! ). It's actually harder than it looks and took us several hours and a few versions.

We also had to pick the colours...so nothing like getting a zillion paint chips that all have very minuscule differences in shading. We are trying to coordinate with the 'sandstone' windows so that it is not too jarring. I originally wanted a med-shade background and a dark stripe - like sandstone & black. Then I got out the box of crayons & coloured in a couple of versions and realized, hmm, not so much. So then we went with a light grey background with a sandstone stripe.

We were given a 8 inch square sample of each colour to approve before it went on the house...better than the 2 inch paint chip but still...I am still not sure about them!

As of today, the north side and front are almost complete! The stucco team is doing a great job (run by a woman of course) and they are soon to move around to the other two sides. My neighbour will be happy to have his driveway back, I am sure!

~photos to come~