I'm made a mess of my living room. I don't know what I'm doing and it shows. I need some help and ideas.

I had removed wallpaper from the walls. The paper came off effortlessly, I just pulled it off. The wall underneath was fairly smooth and covered with some kind of off white primer. Because of what happened when I had someone paint my hallway, which had the same wallpaper, I decided to prime the walls with Gardz.

I didn't wash the walls or attempt to remove any paste. I just coated it (twice) with Gardz, thinking I could get someone over to skim coat it. The walls aren't damaged at all except in a few spots but they have a beady texture. All I want is smooth walls but the drywall people want hundreds of dollars to skim coat, saying that skim coating around trim is very time consuming. A friend said that I should have tried to wash the walls off. I am totally confused. I don't know what is wallpaper paste, wallpaper primer or what. I have limited skills when it comes to stuff like this.

Should I try to wash the paste off the walls even though I have already used Gardz? Should I be trying to remove the thick white coating on the walls -- is that the paste? Or should I just bite the bullet and pay someone to skim coat. Any ideas would be appreciated.