"brickeyee" I appreciate your input about using drywall instead of floor boards. I've wrestled with that idea for a few days now. Here's my problem. The plaster walls are really old with a lot of bows and bulges, I thought the wood product would be stiffer and maybe give me a smoother finish than drywall. I thought the drywall might telegraph the imperfections of the wall. Plus, i have never taped and mudded before and when I mess that up it might look worse then the seams of the wood product. I don't know ? Additionally, I'm doing V-board at the bottom and the top 4 ft. to the ceiling with wood panels. I hope it does not turn into a disaster.

It depends a lot how the paper was put on and what kind of adhesion was used how hard you will work to get it off. When you wet it and warm it you want to get it to the point where the paper lifts right off. The issue after that will be the remaining glue. This is where it can get really hard to completely get the glue off to the point where you can paint it without disturbing the lead paint. Also, one thing you may discover is that you do not have a fine finish that will look good painted on the plaster underneath, and that there is in fact no paint at all of any kind in some rooms. They will need a new skim coat anyway. It then becomes: do you have enough glue off to adhere a skim coat? Whatever you do, just be careful. People get all bent out of shape about asbestos and mold but neither of those are really much of a danger in an acute exposure situation, but "lead stupid" is forever . It dissolves in water, it can get dispersed in the air, etc. and if you get it all over the place it can get VERY expensive and hard to clean it out of the house afterward.

Sorry to hear about your experience. Mine is/was similar. I found several layers of wallpaper, with a skim coat in between, and then under that, it seems to have been applied directly to drywall. I have removed a lot of wallpaper in the past, but I ended up damaging the drywall in one room so badly, we decided to hire someone. I had several contractors come through who looked at the amount of wallpaper and wouldn't do it! One guy was willing and he starts this morning so I will see what magic he uses. If he has any tips, I will share.

I would focus on 3 colors predominantly- black for furniture and curtains (existing unless you’re looking to change window treatments too), warm gray for carpet, paint and background colors and gold for accents. I would pull the carpet color from the color of the leaves on the wall paper to tie it together. Same for paint. I’d take one of the colors you like from the paper and match it to paint. I would recommend pottery barn furniture in black - it will look much better than the mid tone gold wood pieces the previous owner had.