When you are trying to gauge how much your home's appraised value would be, you should look to find similar homes to yours that have sold recently. Appraisers will look for similar square footage, lot size, bed/bath count, and year built and will look back 6 months (up to 12 can be acceptable in some situations). Homes in your neighborhood are usually given highest priority, since the amenities are identical. Surprisingly, Zillow.com has really improved their searching features on past sold homes (the "Zestimate" isn't always accurate though). It doesn't always list all homes that have sold, and if you are in a non-disclosure state (such as Texas) it doesn't work as well since the data isn't widely available, but there are a lot of parameters you can adjust to bring up similar comps. If you still keep in touch with your real estate agent, I recommend you ask them for a "Comparitive Market Analysis" that will provide better info. You'll want to review that data with an experienced loan officer.
As far as home remodel, you could look into a home equity loan (typically will go up to 90% of your home's value) but a lot of equity loans want you to own your home for at least 12 months before they'll use a higher appraised value than what you purchased the home for. There are also rehab loans that will use the "after improved" value of your home to base things off of, but they are more involved when it comes to qualifying (contractor bid is required, contractor has to be reviewed/approved, funds are disbursed after work is completed, remodel has to be completed within a certain amount of time).
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