kitchen makeover planning

so, i've been planning my kitchen makeover ever since we first put an offer on our house.  it is so outdated.  the floor is linoleum, the walls are an unappealing green with a wall paper border around the top.  the far wall is papered with a strange flesh colored stripe.  the cabinets are oak with oddly placed knobs.  the appliances are outdated.  there are a lot of things that i'd like to change, including the layout, but i am unable to do lots of the things i want until we save up for a few years.  until then, i can do some minor updates that will make such a big difference.  the quickest, most economical way to make a big difference is to paint the walls after ripping down all of the wall paper.  so right now i'm trying to figure out what color to paint the walls.  at some point hopefully soon i'm going to paint the lower cabinets gray and the upper cabinets white, like this:

so i was thinking of painting the walls either a light gray or a light blue.  my initial thought was a light gray, but we don't want everything to be gray, so i thought maybe a very light blue would be nice.  i like the way the folks at young house love blog painted their kitchen benjamin moore's nelson blue, the top cabinets white and lower cabinets a dark stained wood:

this is a swatch of nelson blue:

i remembered i had samples of some light blue paint colors from our bathroom update, so i slapped some of those on the wall to see what's up:

see the lovely wall paper border?

i think that i like the color on the top.  the one in the middle is a little too bright, i might as well paint the walls white, and the lower one is a little too dark and a little too green.  i may also pick up a sample of nelson blue to see if i like that better, but for now it's option #1.  i'm hoping i can rip down this wall paper soon:

and get to painting these walls!  i can't waaaaaiiiiiittt until there is no more wall paper and green walls.  so, any tips on removing wall paper?