This blog thread has become less about remodeling, and more about refinancing. But I justify it this way -- a refinance would afford us more money and a remodel costs money, so there's your relevance.

Sadly, however, our refinancing options have dried up a bit. As we'd suspected, the appraiser was unimpressed with our half-finished home. I guess those don't fetch much in an open (down) market. He valued the house at exactly at what we own (within $1147 dollars). This means we have zero equity. I'm not sure about other states, but in Texas you have to have 20% equity before you can refinance. About 7 months ago we had 40% equity, now we've got nothing. We'll we've got a roof over our heads and big dreams, so that's not nothing -- but without a little spare change our dreams remain just that.

This leaves us with two options. We could just forget about refinancing. We were doing just fine before. We have a fixed interest rate and jobs. We're not in jeapardy of foreclosure like so many others, so why not just stay put until the market improves, then go back to the bankers. Or, we can try to get Obama's HARP loan. This allows homeowners to refinance up to 105% of their home's value, but the interest rate might be higher. We don't know much about this option, and based on our conversations with the bankers around town, they're still learning about it too. We'll see.

In the meantime, I've decided to focus on the one really great thing that's come out of all this -- our flower beds! We've found that we both have green thumbs and really, really enjoy gardening. We've got a Wisteria vine that is growing insanely fast. We are having to put out taller and taller items for it to cling on to as it reaches for the sky.

In addition, all this gardening has me sketching out a large yard art sculpture I want to make out of old window weights, rebar, sheet metal, concrete, tumbled glass gravel, and flowers. It will be awesome. Now, all I need is a plasma cutter and a welding torch. Yay, more tools!