When you ask financial and real estate professionals about the best use of a home equity loan or line of credit, the top answer is pretty consistent.

Put it back into the house.

You just can't go wrong with using that money to make your home bigger, nicer and more valuable.

That doesn't mean every dollar you spend will add a dollar to the value to your home.

It won't.

Labor and material costs have risen substantially, making almost every project more expensive, while home prices are stagnant of falling in most parts of the nation.

You'll actually recoup less of what you spend on home improvements than you would have just a year or two ago.

But the return still isn't shabby: As much as 80 cents of every dollar you spend improving your home will increase its value

And the other 20 cents? A reasonable cost for improving your quality of living.

That's why Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies projects homeowners will still spend $183.1 billion on improvements this year, up 3% from 2006.

While the prices for home improvements have risen again, the recoup value has declined to 2002 levels, according to Remodeling Magazine and the National Association of Realtors.

But it's more important than ever to put your money into projects that bring the most value to your home.

To find out which projects do, we went straight to the mother lode of data -- the annual cost versus value home improvement survey by Remodeling Magazine and the National Association of Realtors, which aggregates information from 60 cities.

We used the data to create Interest.com's list of the 10 best home improvements, based strictly on the percent of the cost recouped at resale.

We pulled out variations on the same themes, such as one kitchen remodeling project instead of minor, mid-range and upscale kitchen renovations, which the annual survey breaks out in great detail. In those cases, we gave you the version that produced the highest rate of return.

Our Top 10 home improvement projects, with the national average for cost, resale value and the percentage of the cost that was recouped, are:

No. 1. Upscale siding replacement costs $13,149 and adds $11,573 to your homeâ??s value, or 88% of the cost.

No. 2. Replacing windows with mid-range wood windows costs $11,040 and adds $9,416 in value, 85.3% of the cost.

No. 3. Minor kitchen remodeling costs $17,928 and adds $15,278 in value, 85.2% of the cost.

No. 4. Mid-range bathroom remodeling costs $12,918 and adds $10,970 in value, 84.9% of the cost.

No. 5. Renovating an attic into a bedroom costs $44,073 and adds $35,228 in value, 79.9% of the cost.

No. 6. Remodeling the basement costs $56,724 and adds $44,685 in value, 78.8% of the cost.

No. 7. Adding a deck costs $14,728 and adds $11,307 in value, 76.8% of the cost.

No. 8. A mid-range bathroom addition costs $28,918 and adds $21,670 in value, 74.9% of the cost.

No. 9. Replacing the roof costs $14,276 and adds $10,553 in value, 73.9% of the cost.

No. 10. Adding a family room costs $74,890 and adds $53,519 in value, 71.5% of the cost.

A minor facelift would include things such as replacing faucets, new flooring, new wallpaper or tile, new towel bar and toilet paper holder, maybe new doors for the shower.

Mid-range remodeling adds new vanities and countertops, mirrors, medicine chest, and maybe pulling the toilet and doing a new tub surround.

A mid-range addition involves building a new bathroom with moderately priced fixtures, such as $165 for a solid surface countertop with built-in sink as opposed to $500 for a custom-ordered sink that you would expect in a luxury addition.

If the prices seem a little more than you expected, there are several reasons:

Averaging can skew costs higher than taking the mean of all costs. Let's say, for example, three people remodeled their kitchens at a cost of $10,000, $15,000 and $100,000. The mean price would be $15,000 because half of the projects cost more and half cost less. But the average would be $41,600.

The prices include professional labor, which is about 30% of the cost.

There are substantial regional variations in home values, materials and labor costs.

So, how do you decide which project to do, and how far to go?

The old maxim of "If a little is good, a lot must be better" does not always apply in the world of real estate.

If the goal of your project is to increase the value of your home for resale, your project needs to reflect the neighborhood.

It's completely within the realm of possibility to spend six figures on a kitchen renovation, but unless you live in a neighborhood of million-dollar houses, you want to scale things down a bit.

The same goes with bedroom and bathroom counts. If your neighborhood is chock full of three-bedroom, two-bath houses and your house only has one bathroom, you're at a serious disadvantage on the resale market. Adding on a bathroom would make a big difference.

Then, you have to consider all the costs involved with a renovation. A swimming pool is the perfect example.

Building the pool is just the beginning of the expense. The same is true of adding on a family room or remodeling a basement or attic. Not only do you have the structural costs, you also will need to furnish those spaces and heat and cool them year-round. So add those costs into your budget.

Finally, some decisions are made with the heart as much as the head. Maybe you've always wanted a gourmet kitchen, or a tri-level deck with a hot tub and an outdoor kitchen, or a home theater with enough speakers to have your own rock concert.

You have every intention of living in this house for the rest of your life, you know you'll never get the money out of it that you put into it, and you don't care. If you can afford it, knock yourself out. It's your house, your money and your life.

Go for it.

By Darci Smith and Pat Curry

Interest.com contributing editors

Have a question about your finances? Ask us at editors@interest.com