Dress Up Windows

• Dress up your simple home windows with stucco trim. A simple, straight stucco trim band placed all around your exterior windows can update a plain stucco home look. If you have a rounded windowpane that sits above the square window piece, dress it up with a rounded piece of stucco trim at the top and use straight pieces on the outer sides of each window and below the window. Create more elegance by adding a keystone to your window. The keystone is a single piece of decorative artwork that comes in a variety of designs and shapes, and is placed right above the window in the center of your window trim. You can make windows look even fancier with a stucco cornice at the top of your window or on a sill directly below it, with joint brackets on each side, along with corbels.
  
  

Formalize Exterior Front Wall

• Add a cornice to the top of your stucco front exterior wall and immediately create a more formal look for visitors and passerby. You can make it even fancier by adding keystones along the cornice at the top of your home. Put up a fluted pilaster on each corner of your front home wall to make the look even more elegant and structured, or add columns to a porch on the stucco home. Updating your stucco home this way can make your home more attractive to potential buyers later, too.
  
  

Make More Inviting with Infrastructure

• If your stucco home was minus an exterior patio or porch before, add one. Put up a pergola and place it against the house. Add vines to the top for shelter during the summer and opt for a wood that will contrast well with your stucco, such as redwood, which was on a home that the Better Homes and Garden Improvement challenge judges favored in 2009. Purchase or build comfortable seating for your new entertaining area in colors that look well with your stucco and match it in style.
  
  

Make Needed Changes

• If you purchased your stucco home "as is" and the trim doesn't match the exterior, change it. Replace trim colors that don't match with brown shades that do. Replace broken tiles on the roof, repair cracks in walkways or porch flooring, and touch up rails that need repainting. Making needed changes and repairs can update your stucco home almost as much as adding something new to it. This is applicable for interiors as well as exteriors.