Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - To tear or not to tear....tile, that is.

I am trying to figure out what my options are concerning my bathroom which is in its original state from 1960's. I have pink tile which goes half way up the walls, with the exception being in the shower. My idea was to negate having to rip down all the tile as that seems to be so messy and time consuming and would rather go right over it with a sort of wainscoting of sorts. I would also like to go right over the tile in the bathtub with the fiberglass inserts that are on the market. I live in a condo and, as opposed to it being my own, private "home", I do want to fix it up for myself and for the monetary benefit for resale value, but I do not want to make a huge investment. I will eventually have to re-tile/grout the floor which is also tile (small, pink - yuck!) and am considering going right over the floor tile with 12x12 ceramic or something similar. I need to replace the sink and medicine cabinet. I am considering a pedastal sink. (because I will lose the undersink storage, I removed the old fashioned tin hamper which existed in the wall and now have a square hole there. Ultimately, I would love to place shelving in there to compensate for the lack of undersink space and add some kind of a door or louvre door/shutter. I've attempted to remove some of the tiles, but am finding that it sometimes rips the top layer of sheet rock. Can anyone help and make some suggestions and/or let me know if my ideas are at all do-able? Thanks a million!! Any advice is greatly appreciated.

With your bathroom as it is with little work needed you could tile over the existing tiles. Half way up the wall where the tiles finish you could fix a dado rail (wooden feature rail) all the way round and paint above. Or alternatively tile the top half of the wall, have the rail in the middle and fix tung'n'groove wooden panels round the bottom.. when stained look very tasty. Cheap and effective.

Thanks so much ... this seems to be very in line with my initial thoughts!!