Why can't we just be made of money

We are not rich people. We do not have tens of thousands of dollars in the bank. If we did, our house would have been done over a year ago.

So, we took out a home equity loan.

When we bought our house we did a 80% loan and a 20% loan. We do not pay PMI. So, when we went to apply for the home equity line of credit, we were told that they (the bank) would have to "take over" the 20% loan. This is because they can not be the third leinholder. Ok- fine. we do even more paperwork. The process seems to take forever.

Well, on Sat we found out that the "value" of our house is $60,000 less than the actual value of the house. The value is based on a drive-by of the house, comps in the area, and the housing market.

Well, since the market is so bad right now, the bank TOTALLY undervalues houses.

What does this mean to us....well it means we are SCREWED!!!!! According to the bank, we only have about $50,000 in equity in our house. $25K of which has to be used to pay off the 2nd loan (the 20% loan). So, that only leaves us with about $25,000 to do $55-60,000 worth of work.

I am so upset right now. I have no idea where we are going to get the rest of the money from. We opened a Home Depot Home Improvement Loan - which will pay for the kitchen cabinets, the appliances, the floor, and any little things that we have to pick up.

We have no choice, but some will have to go on credit cards. Exactly what we did not want to do. I guess in hindsight, we should have found out how much we could get before we started work, but we were CONFIDENT that we would get at least $70,000. This was thinking that they would undervalue our house at $30,000 under market value.

The whole thing is just so upsetting. On top of the fact that our contractor has already started and basically has not received tons of money yet (this was his choice, not ours).

Where is the money tree when you need it :(