DH and I have lived in our house for almost two years. This June will be our second year. Since June of 2005, our house has shot up in value almost $100,000. The perfect time (at least for us) to refinance. Why? Because there are a few things our house needs, plus a few things that we want, which will also improve the value of our home in the long run.
First of all, we gotta get a new water heater. We currently have a 50 gallon, but with four small kids showering, DH and I showering, not to mention the dishwasher that sometimes goes twice a day, and two sets of washers and dryers, it’s just not cuttin’ the mustard. There’s nothing worse than having to keep turning up the heat to continue having a nice, hot shower, even when it’s not a long shower! So that’s a given.
Lord knows how old our furnace is. It’s obviously not efficient. So it’s getting the boot as well. We also want to get air conditioning. What better time to put in A/C than when replacing the water heater/furnace? 
Along with that, we’ve also decided to get a new deck. Keep in mind, our first floor is the second story. From the street, our house looks like it’s a single story home. The bottom floor is a daylight basement, with rooms and a second kitchen, second washer/dryer hookups, the whole nine. So our current deck comes off of our dining room on the main floor. It’s rickety as hell and we have no clue how old it is. Not to mention it’s in desperate need of a sanding and staining. Ugh. No thanks. Let’s just get a bigger one! 
Here’s a picture of our current deck.
As you can see, it’s not very big. We want to extend it out by two feet and widen it by another ten feet. It’s currently 10 feet by 15? feet. I’m not sure of the second dimension. I’ll have to ask DH. But we want the deck to extend at least underneath the window on the right. That’s our son’s bedroom, and we want to give him a way to climb out of his window in case of a fire. We don’t like him only having one way out of his room. The stairs will move from the side of the deck to along the front of it, which means we’ll have to either move or get rid of our firepit, but oh well. New deck trumps fire pit. We actually entertain a lot, since we have small kids, we prefer to stay home instead of pack up to go to someone else’s house, so all our friends come here for parties and get togethers and such. And in the summer, we all go out to the pool and have fun. It will be awesome to have a bigger deck that’s capable of actually holding a nice table and chairs.
We are going to get “composite decking”, which is a new material, part wood, part plastic, that never has to be stained or weather proofed other than hosing it off. We LOVE that aspect. LOL And it looks beautiful. We’re going to get our deck in a redwood color. Here’s a picture of what we’d like to do.
Why do we want the lattice all around the bottom of the deck?? Because of this bad boy:
Yup, we want a spa. We have the perfect place, right under the deck, complete with a slab of concrete. And the lattice is going to give us the privacy we need. It’s going to work out beautifully. All of our friends are *definately* going to want to come over to our house this summer! lol
The spa we’re looking at is a Coleman spa that seats 6 people comfortably, an 8′ X 8′, so it’s a big spa. It has little waterfalls on it and cool LCD lights in the bottom that can change color! It even has a cooler, folks. And as if that wasn’t cool enough, the LCD shines through the ice in the cooler, giving it a psychedelic feel. LOL!! I cannot wait!
We’ve gotten our house appraised, we’re in Escrow now and we’ve been projected to close next Monday. Whew. It’s gonna be crazy in Casa de Goings in the coming weeks/months. But everything we’re doing goes right back into the worth of the house.
Awesome!! Can you tell I’m a wee bit excited?!?
~~Becka
