Stucco refresh?

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Easy Livin’ 3000

Minister of Fire
Dec 23, 2015
3,018
SEPA
Our old stucco house is in need of a cosmetic refresh. I don't want to paint it, and start that cycle, and it's fine structurally, so a complete new coat would be overkill. It's just really washed out and looks bad.
 
Our old stucco house is in need of a cosmetic refresh. I don't want to paint it, and start that cycle, and it's fine structurally, so a complete new coat would be overkill. It's just really washed out and looks bad.

Is there a question hiding in there?


If not, I'd wash the stucco too. Why not.
 
Is there a question hiding in there?


If not, I'd wash the stucco too. Why not.
Ha, I posted it, and immediately thought, I should have asked a direct question or two, and decided incorrectly, that the question was self-evident.

So, washing will help a little, but the color is actually washed out from the sun and rain. It needs a coat of something, but I'm steering hard away from painting it with paint. Was thinking of whitewashing it or something similar. Maybe a thin (viscosity) coat of new colored stucco with something mixed in for adhesion. Any suggestions how to bring the appearance back, products, materials, techniques, etc?
 
I went through this on a house I renovated. House was built in 1979 and had sections of stucco missing from repairs and such. Not one stucco guy recommended painting it. The company I got ended up doing a base coat on the repair areas first. They came back and put a smooth base coat on everything else. I wanted something different so I had regular stucco on the sides and back then acrylic stucco in a darker tone up front. Old stucco was that rough stuff and new stuff was troweled. Made a huge difference.
IMG_0801.JPGIMG_1521.JPG
 
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Although there is quite a few colours in regular stucco, my guy said I could pick any Benjamin Moore colour out there for the acrylic stucco.


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We're in the middle of a stucco refresh after doing some extensive renos to our house. Patching and painting was out of the question because you'll always see the patch. The stucco guys rewired the patch areas and scratch coated. Then the whole house was primed with a troweled on acrylic modified primer/base coat to smooth out the old stucco. We've chosen a dark red Benjamin Moore colour and are now waiting for the premix to be delivered and a few nice days. Be aware that even though they say they can match the BM colours, it's not exact - after two different stucco samples were returned to us, the colour is still lighter than the BM sample. About $12.5k to do 2000 square feet.
 
Depending on your texture you can put a stucco color overtop to freshen up
Any recommendations on a brand, technique, specs? I guess I am most concerned about adhesion to the old. It's pretty rough, doesn't look like modern stucco.
 
My place had a fairly flat knock down ( read: modern 15 years ago) finish on 15 year old stucco. Contractor base coated over that with Dryvit Primus DM then and elastomeric stucco over that about a month later. I would say the rougher the original finish, the better the bond to the base coat/filler. Unfortunately, it will require much more base coat product to smooth it out.

This is the primer...
P_20190809_182003.jpg

... and the colour.

P_20190929_180226.jpg

The photos show as raspberry red, it's actually a bit darker.
 
My place had a fairly flat knock down ( read: modern 15 years ago) finish on 15 year old stucco. Contractor base coated over that with Dryvit Primus DM then and elastomeric stucco over that about a month later. I would say the rougher the original finish, the better the bond to the base coat/filler. Unfortunately, it will require much more base coat product to smooth it out.

This is the primer...
View attachment 248607

... and the colour.

View attachment 248608

The photos show as raspberry red, it's actually a bit darker.
Thank you! Just what I was hoping for.