Experiencing with wireless extender

The subject of this thread is: where is the most effective position in a large house to put a wireless extender?

I thought I would share my findings this afternoon. The modem is upstairs kind of in the middle of the house. I wanted the best strength I could provide out to the deck and to the front of the house. The deck has been alright, but the signal at the front got real weak, 2 bars and sometimes I have to move the laptop around for a website to load. Not a big surprise, the signal has to go through a floor and at least 2 walls before reaching that spot.

So I put the extender here and there inside the house, and I was able to get 3 bars strength by the front porch (outside). Not bad, but still lots of loss, because the signal is already weakened by the time it reached the extender.

TL,DR: The best place for an extender in the house is sometimes outside....

Then I had an incredible thought: What if I put the extender OUTSIDE of the house, specially in an almost direct line of sight to the modem? Oh yeah!!! When the extender is on the deck, it gets a very strong signal through 1 wall only, and it broadcasts all over downstairs wonderfully. Also from the deck you can almost see the front, so again there is only 1 wall there.
But what if it rains??? So I put the extender pretty much next to the wall, but still outside, so it would be covered by the gutter and such. What surprised me was, that even though now the signal has to "bend" to reach the front of the house, there was no noticable difference between out on the deck or next to the wall on the deck. looks like the signal is bouncing all over the place and keeps it strength and that's all I need. Against the weather I can actually put it in a box and under the deck so it would be waterproof.

So I am happy. Now I can sit on the front porch and still get fast and strong internet while enjoying the sunshine. Today was an unusual 70 F by the way....

TL,DR: The best place for an extender in a house might be outside...