"DanG" wrote in message
...
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.

I seriously doubt he prepped at all. The bathroom paint wipes off in large
sheets when it gets wet, but I'm not going to paint there until I get the
bathroom fan replaced with something that was built within the last 50
years.

So what you're saying is that the cracking and peeling isn't heat, but just
crappy prep work?


"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.