Cottage Bathroom

Original bathroom.

For summer rentals I want to get the 2nd bedroom refreshed and also the downstairs bathroom. The bathroom is an addition to the cottage and it’s functional but definitely not welcoming. It has a sloping ceiling that has acoustic tiles. The light fixture is barely hanging on with it screwed into the acoustic tile. The floors are cheap vinyl flooring, walls are painted 70s paneling, and the window is a vinyl replacement (which is also cracked). The toilet is fine, but the vanity, shower and medicine cabinet are all bargain basement Home Depot items. So basically there’s nothing of historic value in the bathroom besides the molding.

Tiling the bathroom would be the major change I want to make and because I’ve never tiled before, and will be working on the bedroom and only be able to work on weekends, I turn to a 3rd party contractor to work on the bathroom. The first step is to remove all the paneling and ceiling to see what condition the room is in.

Demolition exposes an issue with 1 of the walls where it is completely rotted out from water damage. Turns out the previous owners built a deck to hold the HVAC mechanicals, but didn’t flash the deck as it was attached to the cottage. This led to water dripping down the wall and rotting out the wood. First task is to shore up the wall by replacing rotted studs. One thing that is interesting when removing the paneling is that the front of the bathroom had a window which they plugged up with what looks like to be a sign salvaged from the boardwalk.

Rotted wood from improper water drainage.

Piece of the boardwalk serving as the wall.

Looks like remnants of tacks and burlap. What was this originally?