Is cost a consideration? I know acrylic stucco cracks less often, but I thought it was much much more?

My contractor recommended regular stucco and then paint it. Not sure why, but it was one thing I just decided to go with instead of spending hours researching it! :)

Thanks Laura. Cost is not a consideration as what ever type stucco we use would be the included in the contract price. He mentioned that he has had a issue with the colored stucco with the last house he built (where the color was not uniform ).
He said that is something he is working to get fixed with the stucco sub contractor but if we wanted to avoid this we could either use do regular stucco and than paint it like you are doing or use the acrylic stucco.

We have acrylic stucco and like it quite a bit. You can pretty much use any paint color as you can customize it to almost any color on a paint swatch deck. The darker colors also are supposed to not fade as quickly as regular stucco. We custom picked our colors for our house and get a lot of compliments on them.

And a close up of color and texture.

Thanks for sharing the pictures of your house Xc60. The stucco color you used suits your house very well. Glad you like the Acrylic stucco.

Does the stucco feel different if you touch it?

Another question about Acrylic stucco. Does using acrylic mean you don't have to paint again in the future? also, we will be using it for part of our house, but it is in a cold snowy climate. Does Acrylic Stucco only work in a certain climate?

harringk, Interesting question, it never crossed my mind to ask about repainting in the future. Something I will surely check before we decide

We used a product called Akrotique (not sure about spelling). It has a more natural, rubbed on, variation to my eye. We did use a thin 1.5" layer of external insulation, both for the R value and because our foreman told us it helps prevent cracking. No painting necessary. I personally like the look better but either finish is much more durable than wood.

Someone with screen-name "bercaw" sent me an email regarding an old GardenWeb post I had made regarding Akrotique and asked for pictures. Unfortunately, her email came to me with no way to respond and I couldn't find her profile here. Below is a photo.

We were VERY pleased with Akrotique. It was put on a smooth-finish, three-coat stucco ten years ago (new construction) and the ultimate color depends on the combination of color coat and Akrotique color. At the time, Akrotique didn't offer color charts showing what you could expect from various combinations of the two so we had our stucco guy put several combinations on the wall to see which we liked.

It was applied using hand spray bottles, sprayed on and rubbed off almost immediately. But it's important to rub it off quickly and to avoid spraying on walls in direct sun, where it will dry before being rubbed off. In two sections, we had to have the color-coat reapplied because it was done on sunny walls.

It provides an old-world finish, precisely what we were looking for on our Mediterranean-style home. And there's been absolutely no fading. We've had numerous neighbors inquire about it.

Montavlo - thank you for posting the photo, it's great to see something up close & hear your personal perspective. Your colour choice is gorgeous, especially with your dark trim windows.

Thank you rcclark999 for taking the time to explain what each type of stucco is. I think this will help us choose the stucco.

Hi Montalvo! thank you for posting! I was also trying to find a way to contact you. We had brown stucco installed on our house and they did not know how to get the look like you have. I finally researched and found Akrotique. I was told by Omega, who makes Akrotique, that Akrotique must be applied over a light colored surface and our brown house is in trouble and would have to be reskimmed with a lighter color and then have Akrotique applied to it for an old brown western feel. Soooo... what base color did you use? Was it a creamy Acrylic base or was it white acrylic base?

thanks!!!!