Our house is a 1930s north London semi with brick on the bottom half
and pebble dash on the top half. The pebble dash is unpainted, and
rather patchy - there are some areas which have previously had dripping
from gutters (now fixed). There are a few small cracks in the
existing render.

We would like to do something to improve the appearance of the house.

1. Would painting the existing pebbledash hide the uneavenness of the
existing pebble dash?

2. We are considering re-rendering over the existing pebble dash,
either with one of the polymer based things like K-Rend or Pliolite, or
with a cement based render. My main concern with this option is the
adherance of the new render to the existing substrate. Is a cement
based render more likely to stick on properly that the polymer stuff?

Any advice appreciated!