I live in New York, and I am very depressed sitting here with dozens of exterior paint chips, trying to decide what color to paint my stucco which looks hideous due to the new bluestone capstone leaking dirt and sediment on it. The charcoal gray California stucco which was applied to the driveway retaining walls and porch wall last year is a now a hideous mess of multicolored gray and white streaks.

I hired an exterior decorator to help with the color selection, and a contractor to do the concrete work, and I now I feel I wasted my money and am back to ground zero. Today I visited a retailer who sells stone and told him the story, and he told me that it sounds like the contractor didn't seal all around the capstone with mortar so the bluestone would not leak. He suggested I hire another contractor to take all the bluestone off the wall, clean it, reinstall it, and then apply more stucco, but I can't afford another contractor. When I complained to my contractor last year about the leaking, he told me that capstone will leak for about a year, so I should wait until the year is up and then he would come over with muriatic acid and clean it. My neighbors told me the acid won't help.

If I had known in advance about the leakage, I might have considered another capstone material or a lighter stucco color that would make the white leakage less noticeable. I am considering leaving the capstone (bluestone) on, and painting over the charcoal gray with a light cream or other off-white color. Some of my neighbors who have bluestone capstone have multicolored brown. gray, and white stone underneath it, so if they have leakage, it does not show.

My house is a two family 50's colonial with creamy yellow siding on the second floor, red brick facing on the first floor, and a yellow awning on the porch to match the siding. The stone retailer told me if I use cream paint under the bluestone, it will be very hard to match up the cream color with the Holland brick pavers I want to put near the retaining wall in the future.

I am very disappointed with the way my house looks and would appreciate any advice offered on stucco color and/or

proper installation of capstone to prevent leaking.

Thanks!