Sunday felt a lot like Monday at the site. We've had countertops, fence building, landscaping, negotiating free dirt delivery (always a plus), painting and now finally stucco scratch coat, much of this didn't even start until Friday evening and carried on well into Sunday evening.  

The scratch coat is a site mixed sand and cement layer.  One of my favourite crews does this difficult and repetitive task.  Remember stucco work as a career option the next time you complain about your office politics.  Stucco is always worthy of a post or two all on its own to discuss the advantages and pitfalls of this product.  Another tip I have is to always have the shop prepare a 12x12 sample of the preferred acrylic stucco shade and a few alternates.  This is worth the small expense to avoid having to choose colour from a tiny chip or computer screen. I have been avoiding the acrylic stucco on styrofoam product, too many issues with the woodpecker coming along and destroying the finish.  

Given the warm forecast for the rest of the week, it looks like our stucco could be cured enough to apply the acrylic layer in a couple weeks.  This will be a relief as we need to get our sidewalks done and the scaffolding is completely in the way of that work.  The pace of construction is about to slow significantly now as we are into the tile phase.  More on this in our next post.