Water soluble paint???

[casmael]

In process of decorating a room, the wallpaper looked alright so I thought I'd just sugarsoap it and get some paint on.

However, above the picture rail there is an extremely thick white paint which simply dissolves when I apply so much as a wet sponge. It gets everywhere and is a bit of a nightmare to deal with.

Is my best bet just to strip and start over?

The only reason I am reluctant to do this is because the same 'water soluble' paint covers the ceiling, too.

Thanks for your time in reading this

[theshedman]

You will probably find this is distemper or ceiling white, it's called a few different things. The best thing to do with it is to remove it and yes it will be messy and take quite a while. If you try painting over it the chances are that the new emulsion will just peel off taking the ceiling white with it. I usually put newspaper on the floor below the area, wet it a few times with warm water with some fairly liquid in and then scrape it off. Once it is off wash it down. After this give it a coat or two of watered down emulsion, 25-50% water to emulsion as a mist coat followed by a couple of coats of the finish emulsion. It is what they used to use years ago instead of emulsion but there are many houses that still have it on ceilings and often on the walls. Good luck with it. Shed.