counter update

For those of you who have been eagerly awaiting the results of my foray into bathroom/countertop replacement, here's where things are at right now. I ended up just scraping the old laminate off the existing countertop and just putting the new counter on top. It saved a whole lot of work and besides, now the new sink is a little higher up which is a good thing.

So all that's left is to put up a backsplash. I think we're going to use some of the tile that was left by the previous owners of our home. We'll see how it goes.

BEFORE


AFTER


My only question at this point is how best to prepare the walls for the new tiles I want to put up. You can see above that there's still some of the glue/adhesive left on the walls that didn't come off with the laminate. So I'm not sure if I can just sand the walls with rough sandpaper or if there's some other technique I should employ. Suggestions?