The Latest + A Question

Lately we've been doing a lot of winter prep around the house. A family is building a home up our road, and when the electric company came to run power lines to their house a number of our trees had to come down to make way for them. We decided to take advantage of the downed trees and split them for our winter cord wood. The largest tree was an Ash, which can be burned immediately without seasoning. In the end our downed ash and birch trees produced about 4-5 cords, which will heat our house and barn workshop through most of the winter after a lot of sawing, splitting, and stacking.

We are also rushing to finish the covered porch before winter. Yesterday Josh built railing sections to install along the edge of the porch and today I gave them a few coats of paint. Below, one of the unpainted sections is propped up for critique. We will install the painted railings after the bluestone has been installed on that part of the porch (hopefully tomorrow).

Our goal for tomorrow is to finish the bluestone on the top of the cement slab and if there's time install the railings. The doors will also go back on.

Question for you all ---

We have been going back and forth on what to do for the concrete block foundation on the front side of the house. It's ugly and needs to be addressed, that's for sure, but the process for adding bluestone to it as a facade is complicated by the fact that the concrete pours over on the top of the blocks (see image above showing the railing on the porch), making the surface very uneven. We would need to do some kind of parging to even out the surface before we could apply the bluestone, and as neither one of us has done plaster work before, let alone the bluestone as a veneer, so we are unsure whether attempting it on our own will be a huge mistake. Hiring someone to do it for us is a very last resort.

And so my question is this: Does anyone know of good options for covering a concrete block foundation that has an uneven surface? I've considered painting (not drastic enough), covering it with a lattice, parging then painting, and parging then adding the bluestone veneer. As info, the section is just along the front side of the house and about 20' long x 7" tall at the shortest end and 14" tall at the other. The fact that it is not the same height all the way across makes it more tricky. I guess we could dig out the lower side or have more gravel dumped on the higher side to even it out, but I am trying to avoid additional projects like this because Josh's head will explode. Anyone ever dealt with this type of foundation successfully? Any tips are appreciated!