Exterior Stucco Refinishing

Project Overview

The stucco band wrapping this Scarborough home — the patio walls, the side steps, and the walkways around the house — had an old coating that was dull, patchy, and flaking away from the wall. Instead of skimming over a failing surface, FAIME ground it off, rebuilt the walls with a mesh-reinforced base coat, levelled everything flat, and finished in a warm tinted stucco that sits crisp against the brick above. Every stage is documented below with photos and video from this exact job.

What We Found Under the Old Coating

The wall did not read as a failure from the driveway — it read as tired. The failure was in the finish itself, and it had been built in from the start: the original coating was never applied properly when the house was built, and it had been quietly breaking down ever since.

Grinding it off is what told us the real story. Under the coating the wall was carrying cracks and open holes — not one bad patch, but damage spread across the face. That ruled out a spot repair immediately. A finish coat laid over cracks like that is a finish coat with a countdown on it.

So the base coat went on across the whole wall with fibreglass mesh through all of it, corner to corner, rather than just over the visible damage. The mesh is the part that matters here: it is what holds the wall against those cracks reopening. Without it the new finish starts letting go in short order, and once a finish lets go you have water getting in behind it.

That is why this job is a grind-back-and-rebuild rather than a repaint. What is under a finish decides how long the finish lasts.

Stage 1 — Cover & Protect

Before a single grinder was switched on, the steps, patio, and walkways were covered and the windows, doors, and brick line were masked off. Grinding is the messiest stage of a stucco refinish — setting the protection up first is what keeps the rest of the property clean, and the taped brick line is the reason the finished wall stops dead-straight where the stucco meets the brick.

Stage 2 — Surface Grinding

The old coating was ground off with grinding machines, wall by wall and into every corner, until the surface underneath was sound. This is the step most shortcuts skip — a new coat bonded to a flaking old one fails with it. Grinding takes the wall back to material the new system can actually grip.

Stage 3 — Base Coat, Mesh & a Dead-Flat Wall

A first cementitious base coat went onto the ground surface, fibreglass reinforcing mesh was embedded into it, and the mesh was covered with base coat and left to set — a few hours, depending on the weather. Then came the step that decides how the whole job looks: the base was worked and levelled until the walls sat dead-flat and sharp. A finish coat is only as good as the base underneath it — if the base isn't flat, the finish shows every wave and the wall looks bad forever.

Stage 4 — Signature Finish Coat

With the base flat and cured, FAIME's finish stucco — the same finish coat we bring to every stucco client — was troweled on in a warm tint that works with the home's brick, then left to dry for a few hours based on the weather. The texture reads even across every wall, corner, and window return because of the flat base under it.

Stage 5 — Caulking & Close-Out

Once the finish was dry, the surfaces were cleaned up and high-quality, bold caulk beads were run along the bottom corners of the building — sealing the joint where the wall meets the steps, patio, and walkways. The caulking cured, the site was cleaned, and the job wrapped with the scope complete and a satisfied customer.