Bath - Original or Replace?

[Jamespio]

My '69 Overlander has all of its original bath, but about halfway disassembled. THe underlying plumbing is in similar condition, so will need a fiar bit of rebuilding.

I'm trying to think through the pros and cons of rebuilding the original bath versus building an entirely new bath. I would appreciate any other points of input you might be able to add:

Pros of Rebuilding Original:

Everything fits
All parts are there - little to buy
Nostalgia (hard to work up much for a fiberglass bath)

Cons of Rebuilding Original:

Its kind of ugly (stained yellow fiberglass)
There is some space I consider wasted (univolt box, for long-gone univolt eats up shower floor space)

Pros of New Construction:

Can make it beautiful
Can get back more of the space

Cons of New Construction:

Have to figure out how to fit everything
Could get expensive
Cannot move toilet unless I also replace black tank (which Idon't plan to do)

What else would any of you add to any of these lists?

[Minno]

I did a search for bathroom refinishing here on the forums, and came up with someone using a product called Homax's Tough as Tile to whiten their bathroom fixtures. I know someone else on the forums a couple of years ago found another combination of products to whiten and clean their bathroom, and people have also painted their fixtures successfully. Our bathroom was kinda beyond redemption, for the most part and we had dreams of relocating it originally, so we trashed it and started from scratch. It IS a lot of work, but we like our results so far. We didn't move the toilet, but did relocate everything else. A con of starting from scratch is that everything is expensive: tub/shower bases, especially. You might want to do some research if money is an issue before you trash your current bath. We had to do a lot of thinking about how to route pipes, and we're still puzzling over how to accomodate the curve of the back wall and still cover the pipes and make the rear storage area work. Chris has put the bathroom on the back burner for awhile.

Kay