The Lake House: A Bathroom Renovation

You may remember that our house on Cayuga Lake is what brought us to the Finger Lakes region. We bought the house in October 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. Since then, I’ve mostly shared the fun parts. Decorating, settling in, and making it ours.

What I haven’t talked about much are the less visible issues that come with an older house, especially one this close to the lake.

This post is about one small but important part of the lake house: the downstairs bathroom in the back of the house.

At some point, we discovered plumbing issues that caused water damage in the downstairs back portion of the house. Nothing dramatic, but not something you can ignore either. Fixing it properly meant opening things up, addressing the underlying problem, and rebuilding from there.

Like many things in the Finger Lakes, it didn’t happen quickly. It took about a year and a half to get the work done. Part of that was logistics, part of it was timing, and part of it was simply the pace of life out here. Things move more slowly. That can be frustrating if you’re used to a faster timeline, but it’s also one of the things I’ve come to appreciate most about being here.

Living out here forces you to slow down—whether you want to or not.

Once the work finally began, the bathroom ended up getting a full renovation. What you see below are photos of the space before the work was done.

And, here’s the bathroom when we were out there cleaning up after the renovation was completed.

One important note: this bathroom isn’t decorated yet. It feels a bit stark without rugs and other styling details. This post is just about the renovation itself: the layout, the finishes, and the clean slate we were left with once the work was done.

Even without any decorative touches, the difference is huge. The space feels brighter, cleaner, and lighter.

In a future post, I’ll share what this bathroom looks like once it’s decorated and lived in, and how much warmth and personality those final layers add. But for now, I wanted to show the transformation at its most basic level. The necessary work that made everything else possible, and made our lake house even more special.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy reading about some of the other changes we made to the house to make it truly ours.

Thanks for joining us on this journey! Before you leave, don’t forget to subscribe to our blog and also check out our Facebook group, Finger Lakes Food and Wine Adventures.

Cheers from the lake,
Niki and Scott