In
our home, the previous owners painted a 4” wide border around the
ceiling in the living room. On that border, there were a few small spots
where the paint was flaking off. On a Saturday morning a couple of
weekends ago, my wife was out of the house for a couple of hours, so I
thought I'd surprise her by touching those spots up.
I
grabbed some sandpaper and set out to accomplish what I should have
been a 5 minute job only to find that wherever I touched the sandpaper
to that border, the paint fell off. In huge patches. It was terrifying.
Everywhere the sandpaper touched, a silver-dollar-sized section of paint
came loose from the ceiling and fell to the floor like huge a
snowflake. I would sand in ever expanding circles, expecting (hoping) to
find some section of paint that was still stuck to the ceiling, but no.
No matter where I sanded more and more flakes started falling. At that
point, the kids came in, saw the mess on the floor and all the missing
paint on the ceiling, and said “Mom’s going to kill you when she gets
home….”