[Lonelyrain1023]

We are new homeowners and very new at home improvement/repair. I am repainting our daughter's bedroom. The walls are drywall. However the window sits in a bit. The sill is made of what looks to be marble. The side jambs however are not. They have been painted many times from the looks of it. The current layer of paint is peeling. It's uneven from so many layers of paint just painted on top of where the previous paint peeled. I'm thinking that I'll definitely have to get a dremmel sander and even things out. My problem is that I don't know how to fix this area after I sand things so that I don't have this problem again when I repaint. Any advice? From the part that I can see where layers have peeled away the deepest I don't even see like a wooden jamb. It's like the wall just stops and juts in to the window. Hope I'm explaining things right. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[joecaption]

Once you get a few more post a picture may help explain it better.
About how old is this house?
May need to test it for lead paint if it's really old before sanding.
A safe paint stripper like Peel Away, Soy or Citris can remove many layers at once with no sanding dust.

 

[oh'mike]

Moved to painting---------

 

[Lonelyrain1023]

It was built in 1971. I am wondering why the layers are peeling to start with. Does this mean I have a leak somewhere? I can't start my painting until I fix the problem and it has to be done soon because our move date is about a week away.

 

[Gymschu]

Could be caused by lots of things, but, since it's a window, probably the condensation caused by warm air hitting single panes of glass combined with poor insulation AROUND the windows, well, since they are 45 years old, you get that sort of thing. If you really want to solve the problem, you're likely going to have to REPLACE that old, outdated window. Installing a storm window might help a little bit as a short term solution.

Do test it for lead as Joe mentioned. You can buy lead test kits at Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.

 

[ToolSeeker]

I wouldn't sand it, use joint compound to make it smooth after removing the loose paint. Then lightly sand the new compound, prime and paint.