The First Stucco

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The First Stucco

The garage is (ouside dimensions) 21'x 18'. Three of us working completed about 2/3 of the outside scratch coat in 4 hours.

It started quite slowly. I really got bummed out. The walls went up so fast and at the rate we were going it should take us until christmas to do all three coats. Frustrating. The mixture wasn't sticking like, um, well not very well. I struggled. Mario kept telling me to have faith. Dave just plugged along. I ran to IGA and bought some blue liquid laundy soap. Mario was told by an old stucco guy that it helped make the mixture sticky. Wether it helped or the next batch was better who knows, but that 2nd batch felt better. I was recovering some of my lost hope. At the end of 4 or 5 hours of work we were pretty sore. Mario, in a moment of weariness took the whole mud holder and plunked it on the wall! Dave and I looked on and for me it was like a moment of "Eureka!" That last batch was gone in seconds flat as we all tried that! It went on so much quicker. It was so exciting that I *almost* wanted another batch. It was late and we were hungry and there is this great little chinese food place just off Calgary Trail...

One top, we used j-trim to provide a nice straight edge along the bottom of the wall and also the top bext to the roof. Recommended. Also recommended is to use something to catch falling stucco (2'x8' sheet of plywood for example) and recycle it. The stuff will continually tumble to the ground and you will want to do this.

Stay tuned
-rob