Let's Talk about Kitchen Wallpaper

Once upon a time, long ago in the 1980s, in the far-off land of Massachusetts, some simple soul put a lovely addition on the kitchen of my home, and - I assume with a great deal of love and warmth - selected wallpaper with which to ruin adorn the walls of the kitchen. Either they picked a print of enormous pink and yellow roses, or they picked a pattern of enormous pink and white roses, and then smoked in the room for 30 years. I don't know which choice troubles me more.

As I mentioned before, for some reason I have no pictures of my kitchen cabinets. Please hold while I go take a round of befores...("Girl from Ipanema" plays while we wait.)

Thank you for holding. Behold my kitchen! (Yes, I had to take cell phone pictures because I suddenly live in the Bermuda Triangle of digital cameras.)

This is as much of my kitchen you can see at once because of the small size and awkward layout.

This here is a closeup of the wallpaper. I started pulling wallpaper and left nothing to show in a good picture.

So when my temporary housemates moved out and left a big empty space where once a baker's rack stood, I couldn't help but continue the wallpaper-removal process that had been begun, in patches, by someone in the past. I have a theory that the previous owner, a single man my age, used to get drunk and do home improvement. The evidence includes paint on the back door window, peeling paint in every room, and wallpaper torn from the kitchen in a fit of...what? Good taste, maybe.

So yes, the kitchen has always looked terrible. Thank you for asking.

Next steps:
-Borrow a steamer from a friend and tackle the rest of this paper in stages
-Re-tape and mud the drywall, I think, because the tape is peeling off with the paper
-Prime the living hell out of the yellowed drywall
-Paint it, maybe some kind of sunny yellow

In the future:
-Remove the acoustic tile
-Finish the ceiling with drywall and maybe box in the beam hidden by the drop ceiling
-Replace the aluminum-framed casement window with a double-hung
-Move the cabinets up 6 inches
-Put down any other kind of flooring than the stained, yellowed vinyl that makes me want to wear shoes all the time, no matter how clean I know it is