Adjusting for inflation, we spent $30,500 improving our home in the last 14 years and its value has gone down $14,000. That's probably not the best way of looking at it although I haven't included projects that just replaced old stuff: pipes, a chimney, a furnace, drafty windows. Those things were old and needed replacing when we bought the house so we took that into account in the price. Adding central air, gutters, a bathroom, and two bedrooms counts as new stuff. That's the stuff that should add value. And before the housing bubble pop it did. The house appraised at over $130,000 then.

Damn. If we had one of those proverbial crystal balls, we could have said the hell with improving the place. Instead of refinancing and getting second mortgages along the way, we'd have kept paying on the refinancing we did in 2003. We'd owe about $30,000 today and have $45,000 equity plus the air conditioning because we got that without debt. Instead, we owe $102,000 and are upside down by $27,000. If the market doesn't change, it'll take us nine years to pay down the balance to what the house is worth.

On a bad day, that would depress me. It did bother me a little the other night. But I'm having mostly good days lately. So I'm not worried about it. Spending more for maintenance and repairs isn't going to add enough value to the house to get us right side up again anytime soon. So if it doesn't make us uncomfortable or threaten to bring the house down, I might as well not worry about it.

Besides, there's a lot on the bright side:
- The house is a lot more suitable for us than it used to be.
- We still have a roof over our head, and it's a relatively new one instead of the four old roofs that were there when we moved in.
- We can afford to keep making the payments.
- Instead of spending money because it might make the place more attractive to whoever owns it next, I can spend it on things that make us happier now.
- Instead of spending time on house projects that might make the place more attractive to whoever owns it next, I can spend it on things that make us happier now.
- Whatever our loss is when we sell, it won't be a total surprise.

All the negative side really has is that our credit won't be in the best shape for a while if we have to sell soon and the bank eats the loss. Oh, well. We buy little else on credit. We expect to pay all our other current debts within six months. We'll just have to rent our next house. After this kind of financial experience, I don't want to own another one anyway.