Minimizing the ugly

You may have noticed that my house has a stripe of terribly ugly wood paneling across the front - I believe this was added to cover damaged brickwork when a porch overhang was removed from the house, many moons ago (in the 70's, I'm guessing!)

I've decided to get our carpenter to add a few narrow (2-3 inches wide) pieces of wood trim around the paneling to make it look a little less...ugly. I have no illusions that this will make it look nice; I just want it to look less...ugly. It's an experiment!

UPDATE: This was going to be $500, even though to materials are probably less than $100 and I feel like it's a simple job that my husband can do, so it's tough to justify. ...so I am going to pass on this for now, and we will maybe do it after ourselves.