Ok, hope this makes sense...I am a newbie and don't really know all the technical terms. One room in my living room, the fireplace wall, had really cheap thin wood strips glued/nailed down to the wall. I have hated it since the minute I purchased the house but have never changed it. The last couple years when it gets warm some of the boards would pop from the glue and bubble in the middle. So I figured I could buy plain white paneling and put it right back up over the drywall under the strips. So the other day I took it upon myself to rip the strips down and boy howdy, it felt good! Underneath was the same paint that covers the rest of the walls but there is also strips of dark brown glue and some places where the the cover ripped off the wall leaving gray drywall strips. It is bumpy from the glue and uneven from the missing strips of paint. Anyhoo, I went to home depot today and was unhappy with the paneling choices, I don't know what I thought they would have but it was only 6 choices and 5 were wood grain which I do NOT want. I was wondering if there were other options that weren't very expensive. Could I sand down the wall and wallpaper? At this point that seems to be my favorite option but I don't want to get my hopes up...is this going to end up being a panel or new wall situation. From what I gather to redo the wall with new drywall will be around 600 bucks which was more then I wanted to spend. Right now I just want something that will look nice for at least 3 yrs and then I plan on a major remodel. Any ideas would be great!!

Shauna