Haha, the lack of replies makes the answer a resounding YES, I assume??

The more I think about this, the more I want to do a Kerdi shower, either with a mud pan or a Kohler receptor. I'm confident my husband would be able to do it himself, but I might get some quotes anyway.

Have any of you updated your bathroom in stages? For example, demo'd and rebuilt the shower first, then demo'd the rest and replaced vanity/toilet/floor tile later on?

I'm far from an expert and just a diy-er, but seems to me that there are too many variables here. Unless you get a new tub with dimensions exceptionally close to current tub, you will likely have major tile work to go along with it (and you may have that anyway, dependent on what is there.) What would be the point of replacing the tub, if the new one is basically the same? I'd probably leave it for now and then make the switch when the money presents itself to really get what I want.

On the sink drain, it depends on how much room there is to work going through the floor and where the drain line is located relative to the joists. If they had to open the ceiling to work on it before, chances are they'll have to do it again. Are you absolutely sure you will need to go wider? Code varies in areas and I don't know how wide your current line is, but often you can just do a split off the drain from the wall to connect both sinks when working with a double sink vanity.

We did a total gut--same footprint but all new flooring, tile, fixtures, etc. I thought the only way to go with our budget was to reglaze the tub as I wanted all white fixtures (about $300-$400) but I read horror stories--and also posted the question here and was told not to do it.

When I had my plumber over to get a quote he asked me about the tub. I told him I was going to have it reglazed. He said why--they will remove the tub and install a new one--tub included for $400!!

It is a white steel over porcelain (I think) tub--nothing fancy but it fits in the same space as our old beige 25 year old tub and works great.

I don't know about saving the tile but we were getting new tile so that was not an issue for us.

SirJohn -- the only point for replacing the tub would be because it's pinky-brown, and not deep enough to actually use as a tub. But, we both don't bathe much (once a year, maybe), so would prefer a shower. As for budget, we have the funds, but my husband doesn't want to put money into the bathroom, especially given how our kitchen was four times what we had initially wanted to spend. (And we wouldn't trade it for anything!)

ETA: We had asked the plumber about converting to a dual sink vanity when he was putting in the PEX for the bathroom through the kitchen ceiling. He said we'd need a 2" drain pipe rather than the 1.5" that's there. My husband didn't want to do it just then, so we left it as is. They didn't open the ceiling to work on the bathroom; they removed the ceiling as part of gutting the kitchen and putting in all new lighting. We just happened to see the old copper pipes and asked if they could switch it all out.

Debbie1000 -- if we end up gutting the room, we'll get rid of the tub entirely.

Waterproofing being what it was (or more precisely, wasn't) in the late 1970's, chances are that you have tile on drywall above your tub. If you have the tub removed and replaced with a shower pan, you will want waterproof walls in that shower, right? Did you know that grout is not waterproof? That is why we now put a waterproof treatment behind tile in modern showers. Back when they set the tile in a 2" bed of concrete, it was less of a big deal and you could get away without waterproofing. Now, though, we know better. Why put that hugely expensive kitchen at risk by doing a halfway remodel of a shower above it? If you want to shower in that bathtub or shower pan, make sure there are waterproof walls tied into your pan or tub in a correct manner.

I redid my guest bath 2.5 years ago, including replacing the old tub/shower and tile surround. No problems or issues. I had a good contractor.

When we first moved in we replaced the tub and tile in one of the bathrooms. A year later we did the rest of the room. When we did the tub the plumbing didn't line up with the size of the new tub. It wasn't a lot but the options were to open the wall to get to the plumbing or cut the studs a little so the plumbing would line up. We had to fix the floor then too but did a temp fix until we did the rest. So maybe not a can of worms but things don't always go quite as smooth and seamless as you'd like and not something I would have anticipated as even a possible issue.

Bumping this up because the posts showing retro tiles in bathrooms keep reinforcing the fact that I actually REALLY like my square tiles now that we toned down the pink! I go back and forth about expanding the bathroom, replacing the tub with a walk-in shower, etc. But then every morning when I look at my tile, I feel I would be sad to see it go.

I don't like the floor tile, vanity/counter, toilet, or tub, though. We have one box of that tile in the attic, so we could patch areas if needed, like the backsplash area if we remove the laminate backsplash. But it's not enough to retile the entire shower area if we were to gut the tub surround.

If I could do it tomorrow, I would swap out everything but the wall tile. We don't currently have room for a tub and separate shower, so if we could not gut the shower, I would replace the tub with a better, deeper tub.

Still a bad idea, I know.