With all of the snow that accumulated on the roof in Jan. 2011, there was enough weight to cause a "flexing" problem in my front entranceway hall. Basically visible in the first and second photos. The brown part is wood; to the left, I believe there is a concrete block. There is definitely concrete block at the top of the wood. The room adjoining it with various stuff stored in it (including the shop-vacuum) used to be driveway until the house got modified. The flexing caused the wallpaper to tear. I searched (various websites + even a specialty wallpaper store in my area) to find the existing pattern to see if I could repair the problem simply with a replacement of the torn wallpaper. Unfortunately, I could not find that particular pattern anywhere. Which meant it was time to strip off the old paper, and figure out what to do. In the end, I decided to repaint with the same color that is in my TV room.
Some interesting discoveries. Photo 3 shows three different layers of wallpaper two of which were hidden behind the molding around the door, including faux knotty pine. Ugh. It turns out that wallpaper can hide a lot of minor divots that are visible when the surface is bare. Once I managed to steam all of the old wallpaper off, and smooth things out, and replaced the light switches & covers & repainted, I realized I might as well refinish the baseboards and floor. The baseboards were easy, but refinishing the floor required a new 20A dedicated circuit, as the sander I have pulls more than 15 Amps. But now that I've acquired the floor sander and installed a dedicated 20A circuit, I can refinish the rest of the floors at a realistic pace without having to spend a pile of $$$ on floor-sander rental.
walls painted, lightswitches replaced but molding still not back in place
Floor refinished, molding back

A final photo of the hallway with furniture/artwork needs to be taken, once I get a replacement table.