Painting a wall that the paint peeled off

Hi All,

We have a bathroom where the previous owners painted it all red--and for some reason, the paint peeled off pretty badly. It literally came off in sheets. It looks like they may have just painted the drywall (no drywall primer?). Whatever the case, we've now got a case where we got all the paint off--but the drywall that was revealed behind the paint is a little "fuzzy," rather than the smooth paper surface you have with new drywall.

So, I'm wondering what I have to do in order to prep this for paint. Can I just roll drywall primer on it? Or do I need to cover it all in mud? Or what?

Let me know your thoughts...

Thanks!

-Josh

 

Welcome to the forums Josh!

How old is your home? Are you sure the paint peeled down to bare drywall?

It would be odd for paint not to adhere to raw drywall even if it wasn't primed. If the drywall was dusty and not cleaned prior to painting, that could cause adhesion issues but some of the paint should have adhered ok. Usually when paint comes off in sheets, it's because the underlying surface is slick because of an incompatible paint [like latex over oil enamel without the proper primer] or a contaminate like grease or wax.

Could you supply a pic? http://forum.doityourself.com/electr...your-post.html

More than likely, sanding and priming will return the walls to a paintable condition but it would be nice to have more info to make sure you won't have any more problems.

 

Thanks for the prompt reply and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get these pictures! I haven't been back at the house with a camera until today. I took a bunch of pictures--here they are:

Bathroom painting pictures by jbeall - Photobucket

I figured that would be better than just one or two pictures.

You can see in the pictures that there are mudded seams where the drywall sheets met, so I'm pretty confident that it's drywall we're looking at--unless there's something else that would have those same mudded seams?

Anyway, skim through those pictures and let me know what you think.

Thanks again for the feedback!

-Josh

 

I posted some questions about how to repair that lovely corner here:
http://forum.doityourself.com/patchi...mentboard.html

 

hey J,

Is the bathroom ventilated? Is the venting system being used? I experienced a problem in one of my rental units where the renters didn't use the fan, and the humidity literally peeled the paint right off of the ceiling, and the walls would bubble.

It is definitely drywall and a good sanding, priming, and painting should do the trick. It doesn't look as if there were multiple coats as it seems you are now down to bare drywall.

the bathroom needs to be vented though when taking showers and such or the humidity will wreak havoc on the paint over time.

as far as repairing that corner, several coats of compound applied and feathered out and sanded down two or three times should do the trick

 

Are you sure it wasn't some type of wall paper that you peeled off of the wall? I see in the pictures that all of it came off?

Is there any yellowish-brown crust on the walls? If you dampen an area with warm water and then touch it is it tacky?

If an area of drywall has fuzzies, I've aplied a couple coats of primer to capture the fibers and then sanded. Don't know about extensive areas.

 

I've never seen interior paint peel to that extent. It is possible that wallpaper peeled off but the wall would have had to been coated with a clear sealer/sizing first - otherwise the wallpaper would have taken some of the drywall with it.

I'd sand the wall down and apply a coat of oil base primer. That will seal the wall well and counter act any effects of anything on the wall that might affect adhesion. It can be top coated with latex. Use a latex enamel, preferably a kitchen and bath enamel for the top coat.

Oil primer is also part of the fix for the rusted corner bead. After the primer is dry, use joint compound to smooth it out. Once it's fixed with j/c and sanded [don't forget to wipe off the dust] it will need priming but you can use latex this time.

 

Do I use regular joint compound on that corner, or something else? E.g., some kind of mortar or cement type mixture?

When I think of "joint compound" I think of regular drywall mud or spackle. Is that what I want?

 

Don't use spackling - it's only for filling minor scratches or pin holes.

You can either use the ready mix j/c or a setting compound. A setting compound [durabond,easy sand] isn't water soluble so it might be preferable but once the repair is primed, caulked [to the tub/tile] and enameled - it's fairly moisture resistant. I wouldn't buy a bag of setting compound just to make that repair, especially if I already had ready mix j/c on hand. Setting compounds are hard to sand so if you use it - apply it neatly.

 

I've already got a tub of premixed joint compound--it's like regular drywall mud. That's what your talking about, right? If so, I can use that.

 

Ya, that will be fine.


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