How To Prepare for Renovations, S&D style

After 18 months living here, we have a pretty good idea of what features are acceptable as-is, and what things we want to change.
Having found a contractor who makes us happy, we are in the planning stages for two major projects - kitchen and main bathroom remodels.
The kitchen preparation story is very long, and doesn't have an ending in sight, so let's talk about how we've prepared for the bathroom project, instead!

The main bathroom at Skyline is a tub shower, commode , and single sink - all from Richmond (or Rheem-Richmond, depending which label you ask).

The tub and commode are in excellent condition, and will be re-used.
All of the tile (floor, walls, shower surround), the shower door, the sink, and the vanity are in less-than-ideal condition.  We don't think we can (or want to) salvage any of these.
So - the significant components of the remodel project will be installing a new-to-us recessed medicine cabinet, a new custom-built vanity, new wall/floor/shower tile, new shower door, new vanity counter, and new-but-vintage sink.
All of our planning steps are working toward acquiring all the necessary components, so that there is never a moment of self-caused delay once our only full bathroom is under construction.

The most recent development was the delivery of our vanity cabinet.  This is S's design, inspired by, what else, a Retro Renovation posting.  We had this built to fit our space by a local craftsman, and now get to stain and shellac it to match the rest of the woodwork.

This end will be in the wall corner.

With sink for ... reasons.

The "new" sink was the most incredible Craigslist score by S.

He found someone selling a pair of sinks (unlisted brand) in a color that looked pretty good.

(We had just bought a disappointing close-but-not-close-enough American Standard surf green sink - available, if anyone is looking).

D's parents were able to visit the sellers, and negotiate an unbeatable price for irreplaceable unobtanium.  We left them on the living room floor as decorative art for several weeks.

As best I can tell, the label on these says "TEST-624", with a printed "116" and "Oct 22 1954"
Both of them have the same official markings, one of them also has handwritten "532 10-28 G"

The shower door will be the cool one from Retro Renovation, available in-stock from Menards. We've already acquired it, as they had some kind of sale, and I lack adult skills like delayed gratification.

We are still on the hunt for tile, both wall and floor.
Ideally, we'd find some magical sizzle strips (liner tile), but at this point I would also just settle for color-matching field tile.  We've spent more time and money than I'd like to admit chasing down possible matches.  I have a box of my failures - too green, too blue, too gray, too thick (art tile) and pictures of dozens more that weren't even worth getting a sample.

However, in the pre-demo phase, we have arrived at a possible compromise for what to do about the walls, by way of a roundabout tangent story.
See, when we bought Skyline, the non-tiled parts of the walls were covered in this plywood paneling.
You might be reasonably thinking that this doesn't go with anything about the bathroom, and you'd be right!
SAFETY - I will now direct you to Precautionary Pam's valuable environmental and personal safety warning.  We are also not professionals, and caution to proceed on all projects with safety and health in mind.
So, D got that crowbar-wielding itch and ripped it all down one weekend day afternoon.
The resulting scene can most accurately be described as a hot mess.

Clear evidence of 3 paint colors (most notable here is a lovely coral, but also a fixture-matching teal, and a beige) and also mastic from some other kind of tile work.

Through the magic of a montage, things got better!

The un-tiled upper part of the wall, with the tiled lower half is also the plan in the future bath.

However, what if we swapped the colors?  As you recall, the bathroom had previously been painted teal, and we happen to have a very good color match in Behr's Spring Stream.  White field tile is, if not a dime-a-dozen, certainly affordable and easy to acquire.  And maybe we could still get some kind of decorative tile - perhaps in a gold or silver metallic?

Terrible photoshop MS Paint rendering

We have a couple possibilities in floor tile (pinwheel or basketweave mosaics) and counter options (quartz or solid surface), but all that is contingent on what we do with the walls.

The medicine cabinet mirror pictured is a ReStore find ($10.  no kidding.) which will be recessed in the finished product.  The other planned accessories - towel bars, soap dishes, Relaxation Unit, and light fixtures - are from Belmont.  But that's another story for another day.