[GoinAllTheWay]

I"m in the middle of doing the main bathroom in my place and replacing the bathtub/surround is acutally not all that hard. Do you have any experience drywalling as you will need to do a bit.

First off, rip out the old surround. If it's the thin walled type, it's likely just glued into place and can be ripped out by hand. Sounds like you have this type.

The only thing holding your bathtub in place is gravity, a series of clips screwed into the surrounding studs and the plumbing fittings. All setups are different obviously but to get the actual tub out, all you need to do is find the clips I mentioned (they will be around the edges of the tub, probably 5 or so in total) and remove the screws. You will also need to removed the drain (done with a bathtub wrench) and the overflow valve plate which only requires a screwdriver. Once done, the bathtub should just pull out of place (removing drywall may be necessary at this point). Once it's out, slide new bathtub into place, screw the drain back in, re-attach the overflow plate and bathtub clips, repair any drywall damage and put in the new surround.

This is obviously dumbing things down a bit but honestly, it's not that hard and a VERY rewarding experience. I just got my new tub in and can email you some pictures if you need to see what I'm getting at.

If all you doing is replacing the bathtub/surround, it would cost you waaaaay less than 3k to do it yourself. In my case, just buying a very standard bathtub, it cost me $150. The surround may be a little cheaper. So total for new tub, surround and a sheet of drywall would cost you less than $500.

I truly do believe more homeowners should try to do things like this themselves. Yes you may make a few mistakes but you learn a TON. And like I said, the satisfaction of doing yourself can't be beat. I'm by no means an expert and the only things I wouldn't touch in a home are gas fittings and structural stuff like moving load bearing posts/beams. Oh, and 3 and 4 way switches make my brain bleed.