Front Façade: Now 300% Less Ugly!

We spent the majority of the weekend working on the exterior ground floor and front step portion of the front façade. The contractor had put concrete down in the front patio area and stucco'ed over the front façade and stair face, which undoubtedly looked better than the painted brick that was there before. But the stucco coloring was uneven and the surface was cracking. Also the concrete floor area was never treated so not only does it powder every time it rains, but huge amount of mildew was gathering on the floor and in the corners due to the uneven and lack of pitch towards the front drain. In our effort to redo the floor and vertical walls out there, we first started by power washing all the concrete and stucco. About two years of grossness and construction debris came off and left us with nice clean surface to paint.

Our experience painting stucco in the past has been it's a real pain in the ass, especially when it's uneven like it is on our façade. We bought Behr's specifically designed Masonry, Brick and Stucco paint in Cobblestone Grey as well as a few rollers designed specifically for ultra-rough surfaces in order to make the job a little easier. And while they did, it was still an arduous task to get that super porous and uneven stucco to suck up enough paint to make it look good. But we finally got it completed late yesterday afternoon.

Here's a before and after on the stucco area, also showing both new doors in all of their glory:

The cobblestone grey looks nothing like the sample we picked—it's looking quite a bit more periwinkle than I suspected or wanted, but fortunately it does work with the overall color scheme and will probably tone down with a bit of age. Still it looks much better than it did before so this is a major accomplishment. Now we can move on to hardscaping those floor and ledgewalls as well as perhaps getting some planters down there and making our front patio look more inviting and less like a barren wasteland.