Wrangling the wallpaper (part 2)

So much has happened to the kitchen in the last two weeks, but I want to give the final details of the fate of the infamous mural wall. If you need a reminder, reread this post for details of the beginning of my hatred for wallpaper.

When I last left you, we had begun steaming the wallpaper off, only to find that at times we were beginning to scrape drywall.

This is what the floor looked like after the steaming and scraping:

Due to the mess that was left on the wall, I ended up having to mud the wall anyway, something I didn't want to do in the first place. We had plenty of joint compound left over from putting up new drywall so it didn't cost anything, but I'm really wishing we had just torn down the old drywall with the wallpaper on it and started fresh.

I first sanded everything to even out some of the paper tears. Then I mudded the weird seam as well as most of the wall minus a portion that no one will see once the cabinets are in. In addition to this wall, I had to deal with a small portion of wall around the basement door. There was wallpaper on most of it, and some old glue spots in other places. There were also two really gross places that I didn't take pictures of. In a couple of 10-inch or so sections was this nasty brown stuff. It smelled when I tried to steam it off, and it smelled when I tried to sand it off. I decided to just sand it and mud over it. This was how it looked after the mud dried:

The brown seeped through! Eww!

I'm hoping it was old glue, but it sort of reminded me of tar. I should've mudded again after sanding the bumps, but I really just wanted to get it done and painted. So I sanded the walls and painted primer. I did two coats of primer on the mural wall to completely cover the mural and only one coat on this basement door wall. Again, I should've done more on these brown spots.

This is what the wall looked like before I sanded and primed. The weird spot in the middle with some leftover wallpaper will be covered by a refrigerator and cabinets. Work smarter, not harder, right?

The big wall needed about two coats of paint, but unfortunately, the tiny portion around the basement door needed so many I lost count. The darn brown goo kept seeping through. I think it's finally about gone--and I'm out of paint so at this point I don't care. 

Point of this post? Wallpaper is a bad idea. If you have to remove it, save yourself a lot of hassle and tear out the drywall or just hire someone to remove it and repaint it. Doing what I did cost me $0 since I borrowed the steamer and already had joint compound and tools, but again, it was a huge pain!