The appraiser stopped by today. We're on our way to refinancing the house, partly to raise some home equity cash to fund this project and partly to lock in one of those rock-bottom rates that were so popular right before war broke out.

This guy wanted to see the inside of the house - our previous appraisal a few years back was done from the curb. We walked through each floor; he decided to call the upstairs rear bedroom a "sitting room" shared between two other bedrooms ("it won't affect the appraisal much") and took my word on the state of the attic (outstanding).