[Murlo26]

Well, just got the preliminary approval for my refinance! Woo! This makes me very happy. My house since I bought it in 2010 has appreciated quite a bit, almost 50k (pending appraisal obviously).

But long story short I should save 1-200/mo on my payments and get to pull out a big chunk for house projects that I have been planning! So I should be to update this thread with cool projects soon hopefully and maybe celebrate later this summer with a bbq.

Things on my list to do:

1. Build deck! My dad and my GF's dad are both in construction so they are going to help me but going to build myself.
2. remove tree/stump blocking deck, really should be #1 or a subset I guess.
3. gutters, the house is from 2005 but was the model for the new development so didn't have some basic stuff, gutters included and deck, just a door to nowhere.
4. sprinkler system
5. landscaping - basic stuff for now, new rock all around the house, currently only have my front yard rocked but want to not have grass up to the side of the house anywhere and then retaining wall behind my garage as its super steep and its eroding now from rain and sucks to mow anyway.
6. new black dirt/sod. This is important on my list but no idea how much of all of this I can do with the ~10-15k I will hopefully get so might not get this far down the list.
7. Very outside chance, fence in backyard to keep deer out and for future dog.
8. probably will do next year myself, but pavers/patio and firepit out back after clearing some brush.

I am getting excited, hopefully everything goes smooth. I just really want a deck so I can have peeps over and chill out there and grill and throw back some cocktails.

I'll hopefully update again next when I buy deck materials and start that process.