External Coverings
Paint
Concrete blocks are grey, cement plaster is grey. You don't want a grey house do you? Of course not, you aren't a Bond villain. Welcome to paint, a watery mix of chemicals so toxic you aren't allowed to put them into the ground and a product considered so difficult to apply that qualified painters can charge an hourly rate almost as high as veterinary doctors just for slapping it on any surface that doesn't move. With almost no weather protection qualities at all the most redeeming quality of paint is that it comes in a whole range of different shades of white, meaning you can differentiate your new home from every other one ever built just by adding the word Apple or Jasmine when discussing the colour scheme you chose, giving you around 450 different reasons why paint is without doubt the best product to use in the construction of your development.
Wooden Cladding
Treehouses. Ah the memories. My dad once built me a treehouse in an old oak, on our farm back in the old country and I spent many happy days sitting up there playing with my toys and looking down at the ground several inches below. I felt like the king of my very own rotting castle. With its rustic wooden panelling and countless splinters poking out from any area that had received even the lightest of accidental rubbing that tree house was my sanctuary from girl problems, school bullies and unappetising fish pies. 30 years on, when building my own house, I covered the entirety of the exterior in vertical 6" wooden boarding and stained that softwood to within an inch of its life. It might be showing signs of age and water ingress now (it has been a whole six days after all) but I do still love the sight of driving towards my house as it comes into view in the distance and thinking to myself "what an expensive shed I built." If the passenger seat of your pick up still holds a beat up five gallon hat and the old country still flows through your blood wood panelling is without doubt the best product to use in the construction of your development.
Hanging Slate
"Slates are for roofs" I hear you cry, and yes it would at first glance seem that you are right. Rectangular, so thin they break in your hands, slabs of slate have been used for their non porous properties to coat roofs for many hundreds of years but that didn't stop a bored - and lets be honest, talentless - architect from deciding that slate would be the next big thing in wall coverings. Now your visitors can wonder - if just briefly - if your house has been blown over in the wind as they approach, before you happily explain that you chose Hanging Slate due to its unmatched ability to keep out all that horizontal rain you've been getting lately. Ignoring the fact you have concrete walls for that makes this without doubt the best product to use in the construction of your development.
Random Gravel / Plaster Mix
Have you ever laboured on a building site? No, ok then... Let me tell you that it is possibly one of the most mind numbing jobs on the planet. You spend your day being talked to like c**p, sweeping floors and generally running around doing all the little jobs that "tradesmen" - who are on at least 3x as much pay - could do if they didn't somehow think they were special because they got a piece of paper 30 years ago that stated they could nail two bits of wood together. If you are a Plaster's labourer life is even more harrowing, so you can be sure that when someone offers the chance to lob handfulls of gravel chippings at a freshly cement coated wall any labourer in a four mile area is going to get involved. This pent up anger, wilful abandon & shear ugliness should not in any way put you off having your brand new property coated in this way and should instead be embraced for it's freedom and artistic flair, making it without doubt the best product to use in the construction of your development.