After several failed attempts to get the mix just the right consistency for our sprayer, we managed to get the gap above the West arch filled with concrete(Mortar mix with a bit of our ground-up polystyrene foam).

The first three times it was too thick and plugged-up the hose.  It took quite a lot of banging and an equal number of expletives to get it unclogged.  The Grayco texture sprayer we have is pretty heavy duty and can handle stucco but we were asking it to handle a bit heavier mortar mix than it was probably designed for.  I’m glad this task is done.  We did add some paint to the concrete to help it flow better.  You can pay a lot of money for a latex concrete additive but I figured why not add regular house paint?  I was told by several concrete guys that this is fairly common.  So I posted on Freecycle looking for paint and got quite a few offers.

Of course it didn’t matter what color the paint was, but this combination made the concrete look eggplant colored.

Thank you to all the people who gave us their leftover paint.

I finally got a good picture of the East wall after removing the scaffolding. Here it is.

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