Hey there from a newb! I've been reading the forum for the couple of weeks or so and have gotten a lot of inspiration around here. Y'all are creative! I also have some questions...

My husband and I are ready to do renovations to an upstairs guest bath. We bought our home two years ago and did some major updates first (refinished use-bare hardwoods, new heating and air units[x2], hurricane shutters, paint, carpeting) and now the fun, aesthetic stuff is beginning!

The bath upstairs is a rarely used room that was formerly a child's bath (it has a 19"Wx30"H vanity, yuck). We want to gut the bath, but keep the fixtures in the same places, and pull up tired linoleum floors. We clearly want to replace the sink/vanity, tear out an old acrylic tub surround by putting a single tub in it's place, and tile the walls/tub surround/floor. We have a friend who owns his own plumbing business, so the plumbing end is taken care of. We are not DIYers, however we know a good tile job from a bad one. We know the job will more than likely take some time coordinating with contractors. We realize that our subflooring may need to be replaced/reinforced in some areas because of the past owners DIY disasters.

My questions: Should we hire a bath designer to take away the headaches of mapping who will do what jobs and when, or should we be our own GC and work alongside our plumbing friend?

It's a guest bath-go for the gusto and spend $$ on a cast iron-based tub or settle for acrylic? Pros/Cons?

Sorry this post is so erratic and long, I'm just a bit excited to do the fun part of "redoing a 1930's home", but afraid I'll make uninformed decisions in contracting out the job or spending way too much over my (very small) budget for "incidentals" that I could save if I had someone (a designer or contractor)help me.

Here are two pics of the bath in question:

Right side of bath from door:

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Left side of bath from door:

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