One of the exterior walls of my house was unpainted rendering, and since it
was originally done, some different-sized windows have been installed, so
there was quite a bit of patchiness to the rendering, i.e., you could see
where one bit of rendering had joined up with another. And, frankly, even
the continuous areas were not expertly done. Trowel marks can be seen here
and there.

I mistakenly assumed that after I applied a couple of coats of exterior
emulsion, it would all look a lot better. It did - but not half as much as
I'd hoped.

Even after painting, the amateurish quality of the rendering still shows,
and especially when the sun is shining from the side, because all the
little shadows really show up the unevenness.

I'm sure that a coat of pebble dash of some kind would be ideal, but I'm
not in the market for that. Will ordinary textured emulsion improve the
look significantly?

Is it possible to make one's own textured emulsion by adding sharp sand (or
something) to regular exterior emulsion?

Thank you,

Al