The problem is if you have dry wall underneath the paper. You wind up taking the drywall outer paper off. If it is too hard to remove. The allturnative can be to use a special paint to seal the paper that is there and then prime and prepare the wall properly for new paper ...or paint. That's what I did in my bathroom. The paper that won't come off thus become part of the drywall. If you have a plastered wall you can steem it off. or use ziff. Good Luck Scott

Actually what jumped into my head when you showed the bookcase and mentioned the shutter headboard is beadboard-textured paintable wallpaper - waybackwhen, many cabinets, including freestanding ones, had a beadboard back. It's less busy than patterned wallpaper or fabric (remember, it'll get busier when you get books in there, unless you go the covering-with-identical-blank-paper route) but it has more interest than an ordinary painted surface. Remember to paint the shelves the same color so they're not visually intrusive. However, most wallpaper dealers (brick and mortar type) have bins with "orphan" rolls of paper at a VERY steep discount. If you can find the time you might cruise through some stores to see what strikes your fancy.

Wow, torreykm, thank you so much! Those are great examples - especially the first one with the green background. The pattern continues from one drawer to the other with a drawer face just like mine. I was very discouraged after the first response, but now am feeling more positive about the project. I'm curious, what did you google to find those examples? The grey and yellow wallpaper I found is just perfect in the room and I'd love to use it.

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.