The problem with all kitchens and all painting for that matter is
INSUFFICIENT SURFACE PREP

Kitchens are notoriously greasy (nature of the beast) and should
be washed with TSP or equal as many times as it takes to get the
walls clean. If the kitchen had been painted with gloss paint, as
was normal years ago, it would be even more critical. I suspect
this was not done in your situation and led to the paint failure,
though I don't know why it would be more noticeable at the light
fixture. We can probably assume the previous owner did not clean
the other walls either and you may have poorly adhered paint
everywhere. I would aggressively scrub an area or two to see if
the paint comes right off, or seems to be well adhered.
______________________________
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)




"Eigenvector" wrote in message
. ..
When the previous owner vacated the premisis he painted the
whole house in cheap white paint. I've since noticed that the
paint under the kitchen sink light is badly cracked and peeling.
I can only presume it's from the exposed light bulb that is
probably an inch from the ceiling. My concern is whether or not
the peeling and cracking is from having a light bulb too close
to the ceiling (it's a standard 60 Watt bulb) or from other
reasons.

The only other reasons I can think of are
1) He turned the light on too soon after painting and the wet
paint cracked and peeled from uneven drying
2) The paint is super cheap and that's just what super cheap
paint does

So really my question is, should I go ahead and paint the
ceiling in my kitchen will I have to face this problem if I use
a good quality latex? The fixture itself is gone, it looks
horrifyingly ugly anyway but that doesn't mean the replacement
won't be just as close to the ceiling.