The hazmat suit caught my eye.

For weeks now, a friend and former colleague here at the paper, Jason McGill, has been chronicling his renovation of a West Asheville home he bought last year. It's a whopper of a renovation, and we've all gotten to see it unfold on Facebook, photo by photo.

“You know what they say – ‘Buy the worst house on the block,’” McGill said. “This house was in the running for that.”

He's not lying. The two-bedroom, one-bath home on Trotter Place in West Asheville is almost a hundred years old. The one-story home is wood frame on a solid brick foundation, but it had a litany of problems that McGill can tick off like a grocery list: rotted sub-flooring in the bathroom, leaking toilet and shower, leaks in the kitchen, cracked plaster in multiple rooms, sagging floor joists in spots, nasty old carpet and padding hiding beautiful hardwood floors.

Basically, the commode was held up by the pipe beneath it, just another indication the house had not been cared for in years.

“There were walls in here where you could look down and see the basement,” said McGill, 36. “But this house is 90-plus years old, and I gotta say, it’s got great bones.”

But it also had asbestos tiles.

When McGill was pulling up old linoleum and sub-flooring in the kitchen, he struck anti-gold.

“My girlfriend said, ‘I’m pretty sure that’s asbestos,'” McGill said, referring to the home's original tiles. “So I bought the Tyvek suit and the kind of mask you need.”

In West Asheville, the Tyvek suit is well worth the investment. If you're not aware, West Asheville is the area's hottest real estate market, a collection of smaller bungalows and cottages — the original workforce housing — where regular working stiffs of the 20th century could afford to live.

More:Asheville real estate market hits 'healthy place' as housing sales dip, median prices rise

Now it's not uncommon to hear of fairly small homes there drawing bidding wars and fetching $300,000-plus, easy.

McGill noted that another two-bedroom, one-bath home on the same street recently went under contract at just over $290,000 — and that one hadn't been renovated.

So the McGill plan is one way for regular working folks — he's an English teacher and soccer coach at Enka High School with a salary of $41,000 — to afford a home in Asheville's hottest neighborhood.

McGill bought the house for $188,000, and so far he's put about $18,000 into it. The 1,000-square-foot home has a nice yard and a relatively new metal roof, furnace, hot water heater and electrical panel.

But when he's done with the interior, the exterior needs painting and some minor woodwork. The previous owner had bought the house in 1992 and rented it out.

“Even if I end up at $20,000 (in renovations), that puts the house at $208,000,” McGill said. “The bank appraised it at $215,000, so it’s already appraised at higher than what I bought it for.”

More:You have $300,000. Here are the homes you can afford in West Asheville.

He’s been using a combination of savings and credit cards, but the idea is to not go into deep debt on the renovations.

The real key has been doing the work himself, or more accurately...

“When you work on these kinds of houses, you crowd source,” he said, referring to networking for helpers with skills. “I’ve got a story for everything.”

His girlfriend, Laura Law, a traveling nurse, has displayed some serious skills, doing the bathroom tiling around the tub and re-glazing old windows.

"I’ve done this before, so I had maybe a better idea of some of the things that would go into it," said Law, 32, noting that she'll also do the kitchen tiling once the counter tops go in. "The skills you need are not necessarily difficult, it just takes some patience and practice."

More:New Asheville policy could help some of its poorest residents buy homes

Law's parents are handy, and she's always lived in older houses. One of the first she helped renovate was built in the 1840s, and she re-did the house where she lives now in Weaverville.

It also helps that her father runs a lumber mill, so McGill got a great deal on wood when it was needed.

Also, McGill’s father is a licensed, insured electrician, and he’s helped with several wiring jobs. All the old, 1920s switches had to go, and they had to move some fixtures around in the kitchen and dining room.

“I paid for his gas money to come in from Franklin,” McGill said, noting that he also worked with his father when McGill was in high school, so he picked up some skills then.

The home’s plumbing posed a real challenge. The old toilet had no wax ring and had leaked for years, rotting out the wood below and leaving a real nasty mess (use your imagination).

The shower leaked, too, and required a complete redo. Enter the furloughed government worker/friend.

“A buddy of mine was furloughed from the federal government, and he basically worked with me on the plumbing,” McGill said. “The quote I got from a plumber was for $2,000, and he basically called that a worst-case scenario. My buddy just charged me for materials, so that $2,000 turned into $160.”

Similarly, McGill and Law had gotten a quote of $7,000 for new windows. They opted instead for Law to re-glaze the original windows, saving thousands.

McGill also opted to patch by hand 26 cracks in the plaster. He did pay a crew to put new wallboard in the ceilings of several rooms, and after weighing redoing the hardwood flooring himself McGill opted to contract that out, too.

For the kitchen cabinets, McGill used an assistant wrestling coach at Enka High who also runs a cabinet business.

While all this may sound like quite the adventure — and McGill and Law say it is really satisfying work — it's not the easy route.

"This is not a weekend job," Law said. "This is going to be a weeks- or maybe months-long commitment. We both work full time, and we put in close to full-time hours on this, as well."

McGill has a son from a previous marriage and Law has two children, so they've become master jugglers.

"Our kids have been bored to death as we’re scrambling around," Law said with a laugh. "You can't go in thinking like, 'This is going to be so much fun!' It's not always fun."

McGill, 36, has not had time for much else but home renovations. An avid runner who ran the Chicago Marathon in October, he hasn’t logged many miles since buying the fixer-upper in December.

“I ran a trail race a while back and it about killed me,” he said.

Since buying the house, he’s spent just about every weekday evening and most weekends inside, working.

“When you’re teaching full-time and you have a 7-year-old who demands a lot of your time, you work when you can,” McGill said. “It’s the time more than anything.”

McGill has a March 18 move-out date in his apartment and he closed on the home Dec. 17, so he's been working with a deadline, once again. I got to know Jason when he worked here at the Citizen Times as a sportswriter.

He's never been one to shy away from work. Renovating the old house has been a real growth experience for him, and McGill looks forward to taking on the exterior, continuing the process of "breathing new life into these old bones," as he says (hey, told you he was a writer).

"I've tried things I never thought I'd try, and I've been rewarded so far," McGill said. "I also know I couldn't have gotten this far without some big help from friends and family. This is far from a solo journey, but I I'm glad I've taken on the challenge."

If you're up for the challenge, go in with your eyes open — and the mask on!

This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at jboyle@citizentimes.com or 828-232-5847.