Hi friends, I need an alternative to current paint to cover calsomine.

[Paper Roses]

This old house has gone thru 200 years of do-it-yourself work.
I just bit the bullet and had a very reasonable contractor come to do work that I am no longer able to handle.
The ceilings on my house are coated with calsomine. The stuff smells awful and painting it was a lesson to my late husband and me when we tried to paint the ceilings years ago. I think we must have done the work with the windows open.

I bought Cal-Coater for the rehab job and --well--this stuff smells to high heaven. The painter did the job on the ceilings that most needed the work and, if I can scrape the $$ together, I will have him come back in the warm weather to finish. This paint smelled so bad I thought we would faint.
Is there anything available that will cover calsomine other than 'Cal-Coater"? I don't want to demean the product but the fumes are enough to make you faint. I need to have the project finished in the warm weather (windows and fan) or find another less smelly product that will do the job while this contractor is not doing outside work.
Any ideas will be a great help.

[jeff47]

1. You could try Kilz

I've had good luck with it covering old paint. It is a primer, so you'd have to put something else on top of the Kilz.

Don't use Kilz 2 - it's latex (water-based) and may not stick to the old solvent-based paint.

[GeorgeGist]

2. Calcimine is water based. Essentially white wash.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/calcimine

Latex Kilz is a whole lot easier to work with and clean up. IMO

[jeff47]

3. Some were solvent-based.

If they have to use something that stinks that terribly to cover it, then it would seem they're covering something oil-based.

Then again, oil can cover latex, so they may just be using a product guaranteed to work on any paint.

Latex-based Killz 2 should work if the old paint was water-based. Oil based Kilz will work on both oil-based and latex-based, but has to be covered by oil-based paint.

[dolphinsandtuna]

4. I don't know anything about calsomine, but

I have successfully covered water stains on the ceiling with Kilz. I did one room and then closed its door for a week, which is about how long it took the Kilz to dry. When I painted over the Kilz with real paint, it took the paint about a week to dry also. This was years ago, so perhaps that was oil-based Kilz, I have no idea.

I wouldn't try to stay in a room that had been painted with this until it does not smell any more.

Alas, like you I am beyond doing a lot of this stuff myself now, that sucks. At least I'm not dead, though