Bubbling ceiling paint + visible joins on re-boarded ceiling

[Fishwalker]

Hi,

Today we decided to finish decorating our Master Bedroom. Did Skirtings and got to painting ceiling. Bought Crown - Breath Easy Matt paint as had 5 star reviews and it's only for the ceiling. We wiped down the ceiling with sugar soap and let dry and caulked edges, stuck down peeled edges of old lining paper on adjacent walls. (Background: Old 1904 house = bad state of plaster under wall lining paper last owners put up.)

Meanwhile the ceiling has been annoying me for years, as you can still see the joins from when it's been re-boarded at some point. The same in our back bedroom but we employed a plasterer to do that and as I was a new, first-time buyer at the time, several years ago, I didn't dare complain). So you can see join lines all over, where the plasterboards meet! Now I know better, I'm like, why not use straight edged plasterboard instead of tapered and skim thicker to prevent this!

So I hoped doing a fresh coat of white matt paint would help cover these joins but instead when my OH did the rolling, it has just brought off big bubbles of paint, right back to the plaster skim! The ceiling now looks even worse!

I stood racking my brain at how we can solve this, as we now have no room to sleep in, a kitchen coming next week and a baby due in 10 weeks! Agghhh!

It could have bubbled as the last owners had an obsession with silk paint and I think they've painted the ceiling in a silk white, and potentially not mist coated the new boarded ceiling.

Is the only thing to do now, use a scraper to scrap off bubbles and flakes until I get to adhered bits, polyfill, sand and repaint? I fear that once we do all the bubbles, more will just appear in fresh areas. Also do I need to prime over the polyfill before painting with the matt and what should I use for that if so?

Note: I will not use oil based paint, and want as low VOC as poss, hence buying the Crown breath easy matt.

Any help gratefully appreciated!

Untitled

• Fishwalker
• 25 Jan 2015
• 1

 

[delmel]

joints need to have tape applied before plastering, if not you will always have cracks and visible lines.

 

[Nige F]

Use gyproc easifill not polyfilla and a WIDE filler blade get a pole sander . You should be able to get a nice fill over the hollows- sand off and prime with watered down matt emulsion .

 

[Fishwalker]

Thanks guys for input! The bubbles contracted back flat once the paint had dried but some did burst so need a light skim and I think it is silk I'm trying to cover with matt so that's probably why it bubbled. Is there a particular reason why gyproc easy fill would be better for the board joins than polyfiller as we bought a huge tub of polyfill finishing skim, due to having other skim patches to do and I've used it before successfully to cover pva'd flakey paint? It came with wide spatula. I think it's too late to use jointing tape as the boards have been skimmed and painted but not very well.

 

[delmel]

polly is not good for joint filling and blending in and tends to crack. The other type is much better and easier to blend. If your good you wont even need to sand it.

 

[Snacker]

Is there a particular reason why gyproc easy fill would be better for the board joins than polyfiller as we bought a huge tub of polyfill finishing skim.

Pre-mixed filler in general is awful stuff. Powdered filler is much, much better and I can wholeheartedly recommend Toupret as one of, if not the best.

I had to sort out similar issues on my own living room ceiling (fine cracks following all of the upstairs studwork, previous owners had tried satin paint on the cracks, then covering the ceiling with lining paper and then painting that with satin paint!) and I ended up stripping off all of the paper, sanding the edges of the cracks, widening the cracks with a metal filler knife, sanding again, then filling with Toupret, sanding, cleaning up the ceiling with sugar soap, priming with Beeline and finally on with the emulsion.
The finish is that good you'd think it'd been re-skimmed.