Hehehe yeah.... my first thought was "build a nice little place to sit in the sun. :evil:

An arbor could easily be built in the general style of the house. Wisteria or Trumpet Vine are the most popular choices of plant cover here but you'd likely have trouble growing those in Phoenix. Like bougainvillea, they grow and grow but when you give them something to grown ON you get a lot of shade out of the deal. Depending on the plant, there can be a good deal of maintenance every growing season. The wisteria I mentioned MUST be cut back faithfully every year, sometimes twice a year or it will take over. But, you're rewarded with masses of lavender or white flowers that hang like bunches of grapes all over the vine. Is there some other woody climbing vine you do like that does well in your area?

I also like Mori's olive tree idea. I'd have one in a second if they grew here. And a bay (laurel) tree.

I say build a nice home theatre in the space.

Well, we did some looking, and....we're most likely going to get a pool.

A few things favor doing this. First, since this counts as home improvement, interest on the financing is tax deductable. Second, you can amortize these the same way you do a house (and same length of time, so we're looking at very minimal payments). Lastly, an article from the WSJ says that a pool in the southwest increases the value of your home by about 7.5%. Knowing what my home is currently worth and what the approximate cost of the pool is, it's about break even. Staying in your home for 5 years or longer puts you ahead of the game on the investment, and we most likely will.

Haven't made the full decision....but we're leaning that way.

After the pool is in....not much room for anything else.

I started the final phase of my indoor remodelling today....redoing my son's room. Making a sports room. One half of his sliding closet door has a basketball court on it painted with magnetic paint so he can move magnets we made of him and his buddies around on it. The other half has a fathead (life size sticker) of Sean Alexander. On one wall will be a fathead of Dirk Nowitski, and one wall has a fooball field. Various sports related paraphenalia hang around it. Will take me the evenings the rest of the week to finish it.