A couple of current photos of what I'm currently working on:
Stuccoing the outside of the house.
The white you can see are the 3-1/2" expanded polystyrene foam boards that are glued (with Portland cement & STO primer) directly to the concrete walls. The stucco is then plastered over that (with same 50/50 mixture of Portland cement and STO primer) and using a heavy but fine-grid fiberglass netting, instead of the traditional chicken wire. This stucco does not have to be super smooth, as it will not be the finished surface - it is just a cementitious substrate to mortar stone to, and a hard protection for the foam boards.
On the parapet wall and overhang above the walls, smooth stucco will be the finished surface. It will be colored to compliment the stone on the house. I'm doing all of the stucco and stone on the house proper myself, but I'll pay the builder to come back and do the finish stucco on the parapet wall and overhang, because it needs to be done all at once, to get it smooth and keep the color even, and I want that to look nice and not like a first attempt.
The Portland cement and STO mixture is troweled on by hand, with a hawk and a 12" flat trowel. Working by myself, I can only use 2-1/2 gallons of the mixture at a time, because it starts to thicken and set by the time I am done with that much. You can add a bit more water one time, if necessary before the end of the batch. Usually I only do one batch per day, since I am still doing some consulting work also. Today I will probably do a second batch this afternoon or evening, since the weather is nice and there's no wind. The wind makes it more difficult to handle and correctly place the fiberglass netting. The netting comes in 150' rolls that are 38" wide, so I cut 8' lengths and put them on vertically. 2-1/2 gallons of the Portland cement mixture is only enough for a single 8' panel, but with enough left over to work on top and bottom edges, corners, window and door trim, and trimming around light fixtures and electrical outlets. Nothing is wasted - I can almost always find something to do with every last bit of the cement mixture. Scraps from the netting roll are used under the windows and other narrow bits.
