"Some people are willing to live in an older home without the bells and whistles of newer construction because it is in a very desirable school district," says Mary Ann Appleton, owner of M Appleton Realty in Greensboro, N.C. Proximity to work, shopping, play, daycare and aging parents also may come into play, she adds.

Location also affects your potential remodeling options, Brick says. "You have to keep in mind (community) legal restraints that may prevent you from doing a remodeling job the way you would like to do it."

Still, if owners like the location and general feeling of the current home, it usually can be turned into their dream house.

"Can you find another home with the same features in the area you want to be in?" he asks.

Appleton suggests that before making that decision, homeowners should explore the housing market to determine whether they can get more house for the money or whether they should stand pat and remodel.

All other factors being equal though, she says owners should trust their feelings.

"People know down deep how they feel about their house, their neighborhood and what trade-offs they are willing to make," Appleton says. "If you love the neighborhood and the skeleton of the home, go ahead and remodel. If you are tired of the house or feel that you won't get your money out of fixing it up, then I would suggest looking at newer construction or remodeled homes in areas you do like."

Kevin and Melanie Peyton of San Jose, Calif. trusted their feelings, deciding four years ago that they loved their neighborhood so much that they would rather remodel than sell.

"We didn't really want to relocate," Kevin says.

Their neighborhood fit them too well to leave. Their Willow Glen neighbors are mostly parents of young children like themselves and so the families engage in many social activities together. With such a tight-knit community and their house being just two blocks from a park and two blocks from shopping, the neighborhood offers the Peytons a small-town atmosphere.

Financial considerations reinforced their feelings.

"By remodeling, you can fit the house exactly to your lifestyle," Kevin Peyton says. "We found that we would get much more house than we could afford to buy."

Their project produced a virtually new house with 800 extra square feet, a formal dining room, a larger kitchen, a breakfast nook, a finished basement and a new facade.

The 63-year-old house had been remodeled a few times before, "so it presented a number of electrical and plumbing challenges," Peyton says. Many of the earlier changes were "held together by baling wire and duct tape."

"You quickly find that one thing leads to another," so they installed new wiring, plumbing and insulation in ceiling and walls. The improvements helped improve the home's fire safety and produced an annual $300 savings on the Peytons' homeowners insurance premium.

The Peytons knew the changes would hold their value because their neighborhood was desirable and that's proved true.

"For every dollar I put in here, I got two dollars back," Peyton says. The appraised value of the house just about doubled, he says.

He gives a great deal of credit to his remodeling contractor for helping them realize what was possible. That echoes advice that both Appleton and Brick give about consulting contractors who can help you to visualize exactly what you want rather than impose their vision upon you.

In researching whether to move, Appleton adds, you should consult with potential new neighbors to find out what living in that neighborhood is like.

When considering the remodeling route, she says, talk to friends and family for firsthand information.

"Sometimes people have had such headaches with a remodeling job that they say they would never do it again," Appleton says. "Others are so thrilled with the end product that they say all the inconveniences were worth it. These people are a great resource. They will bring a reality check to prospective remodelers who may be looking at the project through rose-colored glasses or they can help those on the fence with the push to move ahead."

One piece of advice that John and Beth Fuller of Reading, Mass., got was to avoid living in their house while it was being remodeled, but they didn't follow it and that's her sole regret about the project, which is just about complete.

"Friends who had been through remodeling projects told me it would be stressful and hard on our marriage to live in the house while it was being worked on," she says. Living with the rubble, dust and workmen entering your private space takes a toll on every relationship. "I found that whatever your friends tell you about how tough it is you have to multiply by a hundred."

The Fullers' reasons for remodeling rather than moving were much the same as the Peytons'.

"We had bought our house at the right time," she says. "It was the last bargain in Reading."

The house's value, even without remodeling, was going up, up, up. That escalating market priced them out of buying another house in the area. Still, the plain fact was that the house was too small for them and their growing family, which now includes two children. Their solution was to refinance, taking advantage of lower interest rates and cashing out some equity to pay for adding an extra wing and refurbishing their 1850s farmhouse.

In addition to getting just the house they needed in the area where they wanted to stay, they boosted the appraised value of their home from about $300,000 before the remodeling to $500,000 afterward.

But remodeling is not always the answer, even if you love the home. Take the example of Shannon Wilkinson and her husband, Patrick Nye, of Portland, Ore.

Their house, built in 1906, badly needed a second bathroom. Although they knew from the financial end that any remodeling would add to the home's value, "we weren't really interested in surviving a remodeling while we were living in the house," Wilkinson says.

The house had never been remodeled before but it had some of those baling wire and duct tape fixes that would have to be addressed during a project and make it drag on.

"We didn't want to move out, remodel and then move back in, so we decided to buy another house that had more of the features we wanted already in place," she says.

This couple offers proof that there are times when you can find such a house in the area where you want to live. In fact, the house they bought is just blocks away from their former house.

Their "new" house, built in 1925, featured two bathrooms, a master bedroom and a bigger yard that better accommodates their two large dogs: a boxer and a Great Dane.

"We absolutely wanted to stay in the neighborhood," she says. "And if we couldn't have found the house we wanted, we probably would have moved out of the neighborhood, but that was really our last choice."

-- Posted: July 7, 2003