Yesterday I finished painting my freshly skimmed bathroom ceiling. Whilst removing the masking tape this morning I've found that the paint prefers to stick to the tape rather than the ceiling. I now have paint peeling off the ceiling and don't know the best way to go about getting the loose stuff off as I don't want to damage the fresh plaster and also don't want paint to be forever peeling off the ceiling.

Help please before I just give up and sell the house. I'd much rather be doing my SVA fail repairs than painting the ceiling for the 5th time this weekend.






Many thanks,
A rather p1$$ed off Mark.

Two tips:

1. Learn to 'cut in' using a good paintbrush, so that you don't need to use masking tape. It's really easy, with a bit of practice.

2. If you must use tape, get the better-class stuff. When I've bought it, it's been blue or green, and is marked as 7-day tape or similar (it's how long you can leave it before pulling it off). Despite the name, pull the tape off as soon as the paint has settled and isn't going to run any more (5 or 10 minutes). Doing this before a proper skin has formed means that the tape wont take everything else with it.

I'm going to have to cut in after I remove all of the flappy paint. Problem was that this paint has taken 4 coats until you can't see the plaster anymore. The tape was on for around 40 hours.

Just a thought - did you dilute the first coat of paint?

It's usually a good idea on new plaster, as it soaks in and gives a good surface for subsequent full-strength coats.

Bit late to tell you that, of course!!

I treated the plaster before painting with interior plaster sealer, let that dry in for 24hrs and then painted.

you should seal new plaster with thinned down white glue before painting otherwise the paint will come off very easliy, as there is a layer of scum on the surface that prevents paint bonding to the wall, this scum needs to be glued in place first, hence the white glue