Please help... and sorry for the lenght.... I have a house about 100 years old and one of the walls is made/covered in something I am not recognizing. The wall runs the length of both stories and it is definately NOT drywall. The wall is Very solid and hard - nothing like drywall and the paint is driving me crazy. I re-painted the wall when I moved in (eveything looked fine at the time) and everything looked fine after for about 5 years. Then the pain started to bubble and crack off. (live in the midwest-very humid) There is about 5 layers of pain that started cracking off, exposing a yellowish tinted wall made out of ???????????????????? I am fairly certain that this is not water damage - not near pipes, bathroom, kitchen, etc... At this point I just want to paint the walls and not have this problem again in 5 years - if I prim the walls and then paint would that work? Someone also suggested that maybe there is a layer of lead based paint making the latex bubble??? I am at a lost and the more I :wall: :wall: the more paint falls off! Thank you to anyone who can help!!!

We are planning on taking bids tomorrow for an exterior paint job from multiple contractors. Our house is stucco with wood trim and painted wood trim windows. What would be a good list of questions to ask of them? What should be included in prep??