I had that exact pink and brown tile in my last house. I must have tried 10 different decorating schemes in there; the pink is hard to coordinate with. I ended up replacing the vanity and used plain white 4x4 tile on it. That looked okay, and might look okay over your shower surround. A little awkward, but okay. I could also envision just using some sheet formica up there, well caulked; if you want to do something cool, get "boomerang" or some other 50s-inspired pattern and play up the kitsch factor. I discovered that it was going to be a big challenge to replace the bath/shower fixtures (mine were brass, very corroded - ick!). It sounded like I would have to rip out tile to get to the valve and plumbing inner workings, as you can't just pop on new handles and tub spouts very easily. But you can replace the shower head relatively easily. As far as figuring out whether it's structurally sound, I guess I'd go into the crawl space and try to inspect the floor under the tub and toilet. Poke at the wood with a screw driver and see what happens. If you replace your toilet, you'll have a chance to see if any horrors lie underneath - in mine, the subfloor was not in great shape (thanks to a previous owner who liked carpet in her bathrooms :) If you don't see rot, I would guess your bathroom will last a long time. I've read in the New York Times that tile from the 50s was made really strong. (I'm attaching a fun link you've probably already visited, but just in case...) Here is a link that might be useful: Pink Bathrooms

As long as you are satisfied with everything, let it go for now.

I agree that 17 years is a good long life for a fridge, and that your electric bills will drop like a ROCK if you got a new Energy Star fridge. It's also likely to be a lot quieter, and your frozen food will keep its quality better if the temperature is not constantly cycling. We had to buy a new fridge when we moved into this house in '04 because there were mice nests IN the coils and compressor area and the stench inside the fridge was unreal - I don't know how the OPs could stand keeping food in there! I bought a really nice Kenmore (made by Frigidaire) fridge, basic as basic can get except for the "upgrade" to glass shelves, for only $499 at Sears. I don't like icemakers and suchlike, IMO it's one more d@mned thing to break and cost me pots of money in repairman bills not to mention leaking water all over Creation (can you tell I've had such gadgetry go kaput before?), not to mention it takes up a good chunk of freezer space and I always need every cubic inch of that. It's a great fridge, very quiet, keeps its temperature, doesn't slurp electricity in vast amounts. I don't personally like having the freezer on the bottom, we use a good bit of frozen stuff (esp. in winter when we eat the largesse of people's gardens that I froze for later) and so I prefer having it up on eye level so I can see what's on hand before it gets freezerburnt, and getting down there to rummage around just doesn't do it for my creaky bones. So, your mileage may vary depending on how you use you fridge. (If there was one bell-and-whistle that I could have "a la carte" it would be pullout shelves, those are awfully nice.) I wouldn't go stainless just on the basis of a trash can, no way nohow... SS can be kind of a pain in the patoot to take care of (fingerprint city, and matching across and sometimes even within brands can be a nightmare, for instance, there are complaints on Epinions that Frigidaire's "Easy Care" stainless does NOT match other Frigidaire SS appliances well so you're kind of locked into buying only the "Easy Care" line), you have to really want it bad. You can accessorize with SS quite easily and choose appliances that take less fuss to keep looking nice. Do you have a good stove or is that on its way out too along with the dishwasher? If your stove is good enough that you expect to get a decade or so out of it, and you're cool with the color then by all means get the almond although it may not be easy to match it exactly. But if you'd rather have white get white even if it doesn't match the other things right now; we put up with a white fridge and almond-and-black stove and black-and-white dishwasher for 3 years because we knew we wanted to replace the stove (which I just got for Solstice, yay!) with white. DH just said in a couple of months we'll get a new white range hood to match, double yay. :-) I'm crossing my fingers for the 14yo dishwasher to hold out another year, at which time it'll be replaced with all-white and finally everything will match. :-) It's a process but eventually we'll have all things we're really happy with. Another thought, if you want to go white with the appliances, I haven't done it myself but people have repainted stoves with high heat enamel spray paint, which is available in many colors in auto parts stores catering to the hot-rod crowd - the range of colors is much bigger than you get in hardware stores and it'll stand up to the heat of car engines. Prep would be the most time-consuming part: clean all surfaces with a greasecutting cleaner and rinse well, then sand all surfaces thoroughly to remove the gloss, wipe thoroughly with microfiber "tack cloth" (regular ones leave a residue), then prime and paint per the directions from the paint company. If you didn't want to DIY, auto-body shops repaint appliances too, although you'd have to pull them out and schlep them over. There are also housecall appliance refinishers, but IIRC they don't do stoves on-site, although it's worth asking - look for "appliance refinishing" in the yellow pages. That would be much cheaper than replacing even with the cheapest appliances, and buy you time to research the dishwasher and stove while waiting for them to kick the bucket. ;-) I hope your cramps get better soon. Got a heating pad? If you don't, fill an old sock (no holes) with rice and microwave it for a minute or two until it's hot, and cuddle up with that, a good book and a cup of tea.

What's your goal in using the pump? to keep the water clear? I have a 3500 gallon tank with hundreds of mosquito fish and goldfish and no pump or filtration--it's been 3 or 4 years. It's murky, but it's clean enough that the fish keep breeding. So I think you could cut way back on pump use and still have a clean pond. I would try 8 hours a day, then add or cut time as needed.