Hi,

Having recently bought and moved into a Victorian terrace I've
been feeling pretty pleased with myself for not having any DIY
disasters in the first few months.... but hey it couldn't last.

I was just doing a bit of painting. The living room ceiling,
which has bobbly artex type stuff was painted.. standard Dulux Vinyl
Matt Emulsion - White...no problems. I then proceeded to do the back
room, which has the same bobbly artex type stuff. The paint dried and
immediately started to crack badly and peel in areas where I may have
"overapplied" (in hindsight) paint. I brushed some of it down, and
took the following pictures (apologies for the low quality digicam).

http://www.altcountrytab.com/images/Set35_01.jpg
http://www.altcountrytab.com/images/Set35_02.jpg

There doesn't appear to be any damp... its dry as a bone. The
only thing I can think of is, and this is a shot in the dark, is that
the room has an open fire and I suspect the previous owner may have
"wood burned" on the fire, I wonder if that may have created a layer
of layer of filth in areas than should have been cleaned before I
tried to paint over.

I'd appreciate opinions on what has happened, and what I can
do to rectify the situation... I can't just paint over the top.

Oh and I don't particularly like the artex type stuff, but I'm
not sure if it will come off easily.

Thanks in advance...

Warren