I don't know much about Venetian plaster techniques... I always think of the hand-troweled rustic look that people use a lot in Old World or Tuscan-themed decorating. Which... ugh. But anyway, I'll share my wallpaper experience with you. The formal living and dining rooms and entry hall of my 1905 Colonial Revival all had very old (we're not sure how old) wallpaper. We wanted to strip it all and paint the walls. The topmost layer of wallpaper came off extremely easily. Just flick up a seam with a fingernail, and an entire sheet would pull off in one long piece. I can't even tell you how satisfying that was. :) The layer underneath that was unlike any wallpaper I'd ever seen before. It was heavy, the same color and texture of a brown paper bag, with a printed or painted blue surface. It didn't peel at all. We removed it by saturating the paper, a section at a time, with boiling hot water in a spray bottle, letting the paper soak up as much water as it could, and then scraping it off with plastic scrapers. I didn't want to have to buy or rent a steamer, and to me, DIF is a scam, so this is the method we came up with that worked best for us. After all the paper was off, we had to scrub the ancient, disgusting wallpaper glue off with more hot water and the gentlest 3M scrubby sponge. I learned that scrubbing too hard or with the roughest 3M scrubber would erode the plaster. So, to your concerns about the wallpaper "ruining" the plaster, I don't think that the wallpaper itself would hurt your walls, but removing it might. We used plastic scrapers because we managed to gouge the walls a few times with the metal kind. Our walls turned out looking great. We patched some old nail holes and minimal cracks and sealed the bare smooth plaster (it had never been painted before) and painted it, and it looks a million percent better. So I would suggest that in your house, try stripping the ugly wallpaper--carefully!--check out what the walls are like underneath, and then deciding which way you want to go. Whatever you decide, I hope you'll share more pics along the way. Here are some before/during/afters of our room. Warning! The color I chose might be called pastel! Hahaaa! I couldn't bear to do beige/gold/tan/neutral whatevers, that is on the top of my list of can't-stands! :) (I'm no picture-posting genius, I hope this works...) [URL=http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/1316874844067437743pnwybT][IMG]http://inlinethumb48.webshots.com/39343/1316874844067437743S425x425Q85.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2654835920067437743aUEAFU][IMG]http://inlinethumb29.webshots.com/39196/2654835920067437743S425x425Q85.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2634727820067437743GFeUWE][IMG]http://inlinethumb20.webshots.com/38483/2634727820067437743S425x425Q85.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2360233300067437743eUnUux][IMG]http://thumb3.webshots.net/t/24/665/2/33/30/2360233300067437743eUnUux_th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

This doesn't seem to difficult. When we put up tongue and groove paneling in our former diningroom, we transitioned to drywall in the kitchen. Does this company make prefinished trim pieces to match? If not, maybe you could match the stain yourself. I would think if you ran the pine right up to the cabinets, you could use a 1/2" (or what ever size needed) quarter-round piece just between the uppers and lowers to transition down to the stainless. For the countertop, I would notch out the countertop overhang material around the pine, or even notch out the pine to allow for the overhang (but this may not look as good due to the pine expanding and contracting). As for transitioning the stainless to tile, I would treat it like a transition between drywall and tile. Either just a staight caulked or grouted edge, bull-nose edge pieces, or pencil trim type pieces. I think your idea can absolutely work, just think on it a little more!

Does anyone here remember Roxitone (sp?)? It was a textured paint that came in grey, brown, and other "rock" colours. It was popular when I was a child. Anything that didn't move got sprayed with Roxitone - walls, furniture, etc.. When I moved in to this house I took wallpaper (ugly!!) off the front foyer and found the walls were covered in Roxitone - even uglier. I just painted over it and now I have a lovely textured cream-coloured wall.

Yes the vanity is actually the red one! I primarily decorate with warmer colors and there are always touches of red throughout my home. My entry, back breezeway and basement bonus room are all painted a brick red in the new house and so far seem to be the paint people love the most. Here is a layout and pictures. Be prepared, it's a disaster and wasn't even usable as far as we were concerned before. It's mid gut at the moment. It was part of the master bath originally. The new door will open into a hallway and the new wall will be between the bathroom and masterbath. The toilet will be replaced but will stay where it's at and we are going to add a 36x36 shower in the area next to it where the existing drain is. I love some of those tiles you found and the idea for a red ceiling.