Kelly Hess and her husband, David, spent $8,000 in April remodeling the outside of their Dallas house, and they paid for it without a home-equity loan.

They tapped their “house savings account” to replace the roof and install an 8-foot-high wooden fence in the backyard of the four-bedroom brick ranch house they bought in 2006.

The Hesses prove there are other ways to pay for home improvements besides borrowing against the equity in your property.

Home-equity loans and lines of credit have provided homeowners with a reliable, usually tax-deductible, cash stream for many years. However, home equity has dried up during the nation’s four-year housing slump.

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