NOVEMBER JLC 2000 Where I work in South Texas, most new houses are finished with masonry veneer or stucco. Practically all of them — even basic, low-cost production homes — include accent features like quoins or decorative brick coursing as a way to increase curb appeal. Many builders, in fact, seem to feel that if a little ornamentation is good, a lot of it should be that much better. In reality, it seldom works out that way. Dressing up a house by scattering accent features across the facade is something like trying to add emphasis to a piece of writing by ending every other sentence with a string of exclamation points: The result is apt to be