Completely independent of each other, both my husband and I ended up loving the woods, hills and mountains. That being said, I do have to give him credit for introducing me to mountain biking which became an activity we both really enjoy and eventually led us to consider Asheville for our wedding (because of the epic mountain biking and beer possibilities...I'm not sure who I can blame for my beer enthusiasm).
Thus we began visiting Asheville to plan the wedding. Slowly but surely we became completely enamored with the city, the mountains, the streams, the air, the food and the beer. After we got married, the trips didn't stop. We'd return every other month or so, stay for a couple days and miss the mountains when we left. This continued for about a year and a half until we got the harebrained idea to buy a house there. This idea inevitably made our trip frequency increase as we were looking for a house. I didn't complain too loudly. It took us nearly a year to finally find a winning house...well...I should say it took us nearly a year to finally find a winning house that we could get a contract on! We had a few failed attempts.
Enter Wyatt Street - It was in shambles. It was nothing more than a rental for the last 5 years or so and none of the renters took care of it (or cleaned apparently). But we (mostly Steven) saw potential. After closing on it at the beginning of the month (it was actually way more complicated than that but I won't bore you...much) we, with the help of 4 friends, put in 5 long-long days of hard labor to fix her. The house is completely transformed.
Before (these are from our realtor, she took these before the tenants had completely moved out).
The yard was even worse by the time we closed 2 weeks later.
The tenants smoked and were filthy...this rug was completely trashed.
Custom rug discoloration.
Somehow this room smelled the worst.
Nothing like a yellow-beige-brown room to welcome you in the morning.
Nice idea, poor execution.
I don't know how they bathed in this room. So dirty...
In the middle of us fixing it up:
Carpet was ripped out first thing. The house already smelled better afterwards.
This room got a very good coat of Kilz Original primer on the walls and ceiling.
The problem with working on a house is stuff gets thrown everywhere. The table became a "catch all".
Who knows why but the renters loved dark colors on the wall. While I don't hate this color, it made the room feel so small.
So much paint. Paint on paint on paint.
They removed the doors for the showers but left the tracks...Jeremy is removing the mounting tape in this picture. Also, this bathroom is no longer purple.
Bye-bye built in shelving unit. Hello large room (and awesome blue paint).
Our Realtor, Karen Vickers showed up just at the right time. We'd all been painting Kilz Original primer for the last few hours and we were all pretty loopy from the fumes. This was a much needed break.
The dogs needed a break too. They were bored.
And probably a little high too.
Autumn was hittin the bottle hard.
Speckled with Kilz. This is what happens when you paint ceilings will Kilz Original...it sprays everywhere and gets you covered (side note: in my high state I found it hilarious that the shortest person, me, was painting the ceiling while the tallest person, Nate, was painting walls). The fun part about Kilz Original is it's oil based...so it's not water soluble so you can't clean yourself of with water.
So the only way to get Kilz off you (other than time and patience) is mineral spirits.
I don't suggest this.
This was probably a bad idea.
But hey, it was getting it off.
Good husband cleaning Kilz off my face.
Jeremy and Nate did a great job laying the new floor in the living room and part of the master bedroom (everywhere there was a rug).
This Sunday, we finished Wyatt's transformation. Well, mostly. We have plans to upgrade even more but all in due time.
After:
We had a yard guy come out and tackle the 3 foot tall grass. That was a sight. He must be the most stubborn man alive because he was at it for 5 hours! And still had a smile. We have him coming back every two weeks now.
Master bedroom after. The floors and the walls make a huge difference.
We cleaned every inch of this house.
This was the room with the built in desk. It turns out they painted the trim and doors a beige color. We discovered this by getting sloppy with the primer on the walls and ceiling and hitting the crown molding. So now I'll be repainting the trim on our next trip. I at least got the door frames and the window repainted before running out of time.
This was the bedroom that smelled the worst. Now there no trace of smoke smell at all. Kilz Original kicks some booty.
Dirty living room turned comfortable gathering room.
This room has the same pale green that the living room has. It's such a calming color.
Catch all table turned cute little Bistro.
Steven repaired all the steps in the front and braced the stairs with 4x4's at the base.
There's wild blackberries all over the property!
You have no idea how happy that makes me.
Now that it's mowed, the back yard is a great place to play fetch with the dogs.
The "upper" yard has a secluded feel to it. Plus it gets the shade from all the tall trees around it. We'll be putting a firepit up here in a few months.
There you have it. There's our little piece of Asheville. It's less than a mile from the French Broad Brewery and the Biltmore. It's between 3 and 4 miles from downtown (depending on which part you go to). It sits on over a half an acre. It's quaint, it's comfortable, it's ours and it's available for vacation rentals! http://www.vrbo.com/481411 - 3br 2ba pet friendly!
Hopefully our bank account can stop hemorrhaging money now.
Liz DiNatale
