Refinance?

Noel started going to a bible study this semester and there was a lady there that works for a bank who was talking about mortgages and the interest rates. Noel filled out some paperwork and when it came back we were approved for 4.125% on a 20 yr loan. This means that we pay our house off 5 years earlier and the interest rate goes down. Also because we are refinancing our property taxes are in the refinancing; which is an answer to prayer with all the events that have happened to us this year. God is good.

Because we were close to the 20% in equity that you need to refinance an appraiser had to come into our house and appraise it. This was fine except that our master bathroom was not finished and some other small projects needed to get done before the appraiser could come in. That sounds good except that in the middle of everything Noel was out of town for a week taking a class in Houston.

Here was the list that we made and finished.
**Finish that master bathroom: fix the ceiling, put Sheetrock on the walls, texture the walls, paint the walls, cover the hole in the floor, put laminate and carpet in the bathroom, patch the hole in the ceiling from the wall to the old shower, fix the recessed lighting.
** Finish the molding downstairs: Paint over the nail holes, caulk the baseboards, touch up paint
** Mount the speakers in the TV room
** Clean and make the game room into a game/TV room, move all bookshelves from master to game room, move the couch into the game room
** Clean the garage: Get the Firebird out of the garage and clean the garage that has not been cleaned in over 2 years if not longer
** Cut the grass, and fix a few boards on the fence
** Fix the Attic hole with new molding

It does seem a little crazy when I type it out. Well Noel put the Sheetrock up and put the laminate on the floor before he left for Houston. While he was gone, I put the joint tape up and smoothed the walls the best that I could, I fixed the ceiling. That sounded too easy though, I had to cut the Sheetrock out of the ceiling to both sides of the studs. After I did that I realized that there was no way I was going to get a new piece of Sheetrock up there without some help. So Tim Conroy came over and helped me for a couple hours. That was the first time that I had actually been in our attic. Then I textured the walls and painted them.

When Noel got back we did the touch up on the walls that needed to be done, we put popcorn back on the ceiling, because we did not have time or energy to scrape the ceilings, and we put carpet in the master bathroom. We used the rest of the laminate from the stairs and a piece of the new carpet from downstairs with the memory pad as well. Noel then made the moldings for the doorways, because the hardware store wanted to charge over $30 for a piece of molding. Noel and I had never laid carpet but I think we did an excellent job with seam tape and making sure to pull the carpet as much as possible. We did the rest of the list as well. We made an appointment to have the appraiser over on a Wednesday morning. Well on Tuesday Noel and I stayed up all night and morning to finish the list, which meant that neither of us got any sleep that night. I did get a nap that afternoon though, sorry babe. The appraiser came and did his thing and we are closing soon.

Noel and I were shocked to hear what our house was appraised at. We were appraised at 209,000. Now we did not pay that for our house but Noel and I have put a lot of work into our house with our own hands and we would not sell our house for 209,000 but with the economy and what people are selling their houses for that is what our house appraised for.

So here is a little slideshow of the transformation of our master bathroom.