When the color is impregnated into the stucco, it wont be monotone or one solid color compared to painted. It will have light and dark areas depending on the texture. If no texture and a sand type finish, it will be more monotone but still have variations. When it is impregnated and you need a repair or say you add a window or change out a slider to french doors, the area of repair is hard to match up even when the same product is used and even when the lot # is the same because of variances in the mix at application, as well as fading over time due to the elements. When painted, you can match up repairs or remodeling areas pretty handily. I have been told that you dont want too many coats of paint on stucco, so if you go with painted and change color schemes over the years, you might have to eventually strip the paint coats if too much build up. Imo, i would go with impregnated as you can always paint it in the future should you want a change.

I have been told it is better to paint the stucco. Here in my locale, many builders charge an upgrade price to paint, as impregnated is cheaper and faster. I'd paint.

It's understandable painting costing more as the stucco crew applies the stucco mix as is, it's left to cure, then involves a paint crew to color coat. Impregnated, the color is added to the stucco mix and applied by the stucco crew. You might want to double check w/ your builder on the costs difference.

You might ask your builder or your stucco contractor if the acrylic top coat is available in your area. It is the best of both worlds and is more reliable than either impregnated or painted as it remains flexible contraction/expansion during temperature changes and lessens the chance of cracking. It also offers a wider variety of textures that cant always be accomplished w/ stucco mix and looks nice smooth as well.

We used elastomeric paint on the last house we owned in CA. It's supposed to last 20 years. It was painted over the tract home builder's stucco when it was 11 years old. It looked really nice even 13 years later when we sold it.

Our home is an old-world Italian style and we wanted something that would complement that look. Short of faux painting the entire house, we became convinced that paint would simply be too uniform for the look we wanted. We chose a smooth finish, colored stucco that was then covered with a spray-on, wipe-off antiquing solution called AkroTique. It left a mottled finish that was able to achieve exactly the mottled finish that we wanted. We've gotten loads of complements on the stucco and what it adds to the look of the house.

Getting the color right took some trial and error on test patches because the final look is a combination of the stucco color and the AkroTique color and the manufacturer (Omega, I think) had no color chart showing all the potential combinations. In addition, application requires some skill and experience. It's applied with a pump sprayer (like those used in your garden) and then immediately wiped off. If the coating is allowed to dry before being wiped off, the resulting color is too dark.

Unlike a regular colored stucco, if we have to patch somewhere, we'll have to reapply BOTH the colored stucco AND the AkroTique over-coating. Because of this, I would only recommend using it on the stronger, three-coat stucco, since it's less prone to damage. But the coating apparently helps to waterproof the stucco and provides some measure of protection from water damage.

Bob

Bob,
Could we see photos? I have a stucco that is hand troweled and is rough and smooth and the color is in the stucco. The way it's been explained it to us for ours is that you put a glaze or sealer over the stucco and then paint it. The paint adheres to the rough spots and not to the smooth, which gives us the aged tuscan finish. Do you have cracks in your stucco since it is smooth? We've had a few issues with our stucco.

krislrob, below are links to a few pictures during construction. One shows a guy using a spray bottle to apply the AkroTique and you can see the contrast before and after application. Regarding cracks, we paid extra to have the wire mesh nailed to the sheer panels with spacer-nails to strengthen the stucco...and we STILL got cracks. But not many and all were hairline. They may be more noticeable because of the troweled-smooth finish but you really have to look for them.

http://www.geocities.com/nuhse/Im001495.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/nuhse/Im001500.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/nuhse/Im001584.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/move_in_6352/Im001673.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/nuhse/Im001976.jpg

Bob

You will always have hairline,(minor), cracking w/ stucco. It's somewhat the nature of the beast. Common areas are areas where the house can flex such as openings. A way to reinforce the corners of the openings during the lath process is to use peices of rib lath at the corners before the lath wire is installed. It just give a little more reinforcement and something more for the mud to grab onto. Another important step that's not always done in some areas on a three coat process is to let the scratch/brown coats sit for a minimum of 30 days before color coating. Equally important is to keep the scratch/brown coats wet down 2-3 times a week during the 30 day curing period, especially in warmer weather months. This allows the scratch/brown coats to crack and settle. If this step is ignored, the cracks that occur when covered over by the color coat will be picked up and followed through the color coat and are typically more than hairline and should be addressed. Hairline cracking is normal and is generally hard to spot. Anything bigger is a problem.

Nice looking stucco, montalvo!

Thanks for the compliment, sierraeast, and thanks to for pointing out the benefit of letting the brown coat age for a month. We did that, too, and I'm sure it helped.

Bob

We are also looking into colored stucco for our new house construction. The architect and builder have suggested color mixes from a company named LaHabra Stucco. We have a few color samples from them. When comparing colors, the colors when viewed on a computer are a lot more saturated than the actual sample.

Here is a link that might be useful: LaHabra stucco colors

Ours will have the elastomeric top coat applied with the stucco. Just means we had to pick out our colors earlier.
My neighbor has it on his and it looks good after four years.