If it were my rental, I would strongly consider cutting the whole out square, and filling it with some uv prefinished maple or some other similar looking 1/2 inch ply with a clear cost from your local building supply store.

I am exploring some options: 1) Buy outside CH a fixer upper and find for myself a rental in CH close to my son's school; 2) Ideally, try to find something I can add value to in CH where I can live in, and rent out/resell with ease. 3)  Househack a MFH 4) Other.

Downstairs unit had 18 inches of water in it.

Who wants to be on the lake when the snow is 20 inches deep.

But I also tiled an entire oversize shower, walls and base. in that 1 inch hex tile.

Forgot to add when you have a size of building where you can employ a full time handyman it makes a huge difference as they know every inch of those units and how to make repairs fast for existing tenants and how to turn units fast to get rented again.That size is about 50 units depending on rent prices per unit and actual expected labor cost for that market for a handyman.

Last year we payed per occurrence and were charged $65 for shoveling and salting, and when snow fall was more then 1 inch they would service the property.

Our rental is actually a 2/1 but the 2nd bedroom is a few inches short of counting as a actual bedroom. 

Someday, you too can be a person who doesn't own a square inch of investment property and has a higher influence rating than 20 year veterans with over 100 rental units.Tim

Plus to keep the vertical lines straight we would have had to cut a 2 inch square tile in half every other level so we decided to just leave it at cabinet height .