Can anyone tell me what has happened to my newly (professionally) painted walls?

[Sandcaaarstle]

Just had my lounge painted. It was silk emulsion and I didn’t fancy panting it myself with Matt emulsion. I’ve come home from work today (it was finished yesterday afternoon) and looks like this. What do I do now?
I’ve attached photos but might not upload for a while.

Yikes. What was it painted on? Bare plaster? Or did they do an undercoat, or paint on top of the existing paint?
I haven’t seen that kind of cracking before, you might need to cover with lining paper and paint on that?

Is that the paint cracking??? Silly question but were the walls recently plastered or prepped before painting?

Was this on bare plaster? It looks like egg shelling - where paint is put on fresh plaster and cracks. Freshly plastered walls need a mist coat for this reason. I would get your decorator back!

I'm not an expert but it looks like they didn't wait for the new plaster to dry before painting?

Even if it’s dry it will do this without a mist coat.

OP, I hope you haven’t paid your decorator??

One wall was wallpapered which they removed. All four walls had silk emulsion paint on it. I heard them sanding it down but I don’t know exactly what products they used. Definitely wasn’t painted onto bare plaster. Surely they’ll have to come back and fix it? Have just sent photos and awaiting response. I’m devastated. I saved up for months 🙁

That’s definitely not right. Reminds me of that crackle nail polish.

call them back out.

On new plaster? It looks like they didn’t do a mist coat first.

I have paid - it was perfect when they left yesterday afternoon. This has happened at some point today.

Just withhold payment until it’s sorted; a good decorator will fix this, and a bad one can be replaced and not paid!

Not new plaster, had been previously painted with silk emulsion

Definitely get them back to fix that! Are they reputable / local?

This can happen when you paint Matt over silk without prepping the walls first. I have made this mistake before. I'd be very cross if a professional did it however

The house is 5 years old so the plaster not remotely new.

You need a primer on top of the silk for the new paint to adhere . That’s why it’s gone t like that . It’s just floating on top of the silk . Will probably peel off .

This is why I never ever ever pay straight away - always a day or so later to give me time to check for problems

Well known that this can happen when you paint matt paint over silk. I'm surprised that your decorator didn't know this. It's going to be a nightmare to put right.

Yes they are local and very reputable. I’m wondering if it was the silk emulsion too. Which is exactly why I didn’t want to do it.

It looks like the new paint is incompatible with the underlying paint. I once had this problem with some F&B paint. Had to be scraped off, rubbed down and sealed before repainting.

Matt paint over silk will do this yeah.

You’ve just unlocked a memory. We actually did that in a old house it did not got as bad as this as we did a very hard sugar scrub but kept
wondering why kept finding cracks and kept basically adding more and more layers of paint 🫣 about 10 years ago now.

It's a well known problem unfortunately. Pros hate silk emulsion, they should have warned you this could happen.

You also need to seal previously wallpapered walls or wash off every last trace of old paste or put up lining paper and paint that. Otherwise the paste will damage the new paint eventually (not necessarily straight away ).

Did you then sell that house to me? 🤨😂

Yeah matt over silk. A coat of zinsser undercoat will fix it