Ok ya’ll, so this is it. The interior before pictures. In all their glory. Since the pictures are pretty low-quality phone pictures, I must admit, the house doesn’t look that bad. But let me assure you, this was and still is one fixer-upper. Let’s point out some of the fun issues going on, shall we?!

In the photo above, you can see why I fell in love with the place. The wood floors and that cute archway to the kitchen. Plus, the housing market in Asheville is insanely competitive and this is the only house we saw in our price range that wasn’t falling off a mountain. Not even kidding. Well, low and behold, we’ve had to demolish the archway and refinish the floors. It’s a long story for another time, but let me just say that character isn’t always charming.

Anyways, in the first photo you can also see the textured ceiling and if you look carefully, you can also see that the ceiling bows a bit. Both problems. What you also can’t see in these photos is what poor shape the drywall was in. This house was a rental for many years and poor drywall patch jobs, coupled with a teething dog, didn’t do it any favors.

If you walk straight through the living room, you’ll end up in the kitchen. The kitchen and the bathroom were the worst rooms in the house. The kitchen had linoleum that was so worn you could see the subfloor and the cabinets had holes where mice had eaten through. I wish I was kidding.

Also I’m pretty sure the landlord just went to Habitat for Humanity, said “Ok, this cabinet looks good” and threw a bunch of rando cabinets together to form some semblance of a kitchen.

This house was built in 1953, so I didn’t expect a separate space or closet for the washer/dryer, but it’s bizarre to me that the washer is on one side of the kitchen and the dryer is on the other.

Next up through the kitchen is what most people would use for a dining room, but what we are turning into an office. We didn’t know this at the time, but that room was closed in years after the house was built and was once (most likely) a sun room.

You can see from the picture above that at one time the door in the office leaked and water ruined the door and the linoleum. (Not too sad about that.)

The drywall was better in the office, but like the rest of the house, had an orange peel texture. (I actually don’t think the texture was intentional either. I think it was just multiple bad paint jobs.)

If you walk back through the living room, to the right of the 1st photo, you’ll see the bathroom and a very small hallway. The bathroom had been redone over the years with again, probably random leftover tile and plasticy walls.

The plastic surrounding the tub was unsightly to say the least and the wood around the window was completely rotten.

The sink and the bathroom storage were in ok shape, but pretty cheap in quality and lacking in style. (I’m all about restoring and keeping things to cut down cost, but there is no fixing ugly there.)

To the left of the bathroom is the back bedroom. Both bedrooms are the same size, but since we like a dark bedroom, I think we’ll make the back bedroom the “master.”

The closets in both bedrooms had truly awful drywall patch jobs. I’m no drywall expert, but I’m 100% positive that I could have done a better job.

You can see from the photo above that there is a different type of ceiling in the bedrooms than in the rest of the house. Why? I have no idea.

There are so many things in this house that were just bad patch jobs over the years. There’s been a lot of unsexy and unforeseen problems as well. The house had almost no insulation and we needed a new roof. We knew both of those problems before we purchased the house, but in some ways this house has been the Neverending Problem. (Insert Neverending Story theme music here.)

I’ll talk more about our progress soon! So, what do you think? Are you scared for us? Are you pumped to see the after pictures? (I am!) Let me know what you think in the comments!