I will answer this one in 2 parts. 1) If you have plaster walls, then your home was most likely built prior to 1978. It depends on the area, I suppose, but the majority of homes built Pre-1978 have dangerous amounts of lead in the paint. Because of this, I highly recommend either getting a lead test before DIY-ing it, or hiring a professional company that's certified to do lead abatement and lead maintenance repainting. If you scrape/sand/etc over lead paint with children in the house, then unfortunately, asthma and allergies will be the least of your worries. Lead has been shown to cause severe birth defects in fetuses of pregnant women, as well as learning deficits, lowered IQ, organ damage, ADHD, and other serious problems in children. It also affects adults, although to a lesser extent. Lead dust/chips, when inhaled or swallowed, stays in the bone marrow for decades and slowly releases into the bloodstream, where it damages organs including the brain, liver, heart, etc. ================================= 2) If by plaster you really meant to say "drywall", then unfortunately, the only way to hide this defect is by applying joint compound, sanding, oil priming and painting. If your son has asthma, a way to counter this is, ironically, doing the same thing a lead abatement company would do: Quarantine the area off with plastic and painters tape (they use duct tape and 6mm plastic for lead, but you dont need all that), turn off the AC/Heat and plastic the vents and return system, and completely box in the area sealed tight. Then, once he is done, have him do the "TSP sandwich"- clean the dust up with TSP mixed with water (8 parts water, 1 part TSP), then have him use a HEPA vacuum to vacuum all of the area, then wet-wipe again with the TSP/water combo. At this point, have the area air scrubbed with a HEPA filter (air scrubber preferably, but a lower strength one will do), then remove the plastic and immediately bag it. Problem solved. ALSO, one more thing:Even if a self-leveling paint could cover this ridge(which it wont, self leveling doesnt work over obvious ridges like that), then you would still need to clean the walls with TSP and water and then apply an oil primer before doing the self-leveling paint, in order to clean and then prime over any remnants of, the wallpaper glue. If you just put the paint over the ridge as it currently is, it would probably start to peel due to the wallpaper glue or glue remnants.

Hey Tsh, Is there any wood on the backside of the loose-paint pieces? * If it's only PAINT-skin coming off, that's "good" in a sense! Otherwise you may spend some time glueing stuff back down, &/or using some wood-filler to smooth things off. * Just lightly scrape the loose paint back to well-adhered areas. * Your sanding will need to start in the 100-grit area like you stated, finishing with about a 220 "finish-pass". * Remove all dust. * If you've had to do any putty-filling/sanding, brush a thin coat of primer on these, so as not to leave a "paint-ridge". Then prime everything with a good full coat. * As you state, 2 coats of a good latex! >>> If you can...try to get some primer & paint on those door edges too. Anything to seal off the ends/tops/bottoms of sections will help!! >>> Try to keep these section-edges apart as much as you can! When closed, there's a lot of pressure on these edges. It'll be some time b4 paint is cured hard enough to not come off. Faron

Wow, that is a stumper then. I really have no other suggestions. Myself, I'd be leery of putting poly over it to hold it down, I'd be thinking the poly would lift up too, or crack and craze? Dunno. Had a similar experience recently. Freebie little lamp I got, perfect shape for a bedside but it was black and I wanted it cream. Did everything right and there was one tiny spot that the primer and paint just kept curling up and cracking off of and I just can not get it fixed. Guess you could always try the poly, if you can get the topcoat to cling long enough to apply it?

Well....sorry to burst your bubble....but it IS the paint AND primer. More specifically: It's ANY paint and primers' issue! * Modern-day Primers and paints "skin over" quickly at the tape edge. This bond is stronger than the primer-to-paint/wall-bond....for many days. * Primers and paints curing TO THE WALL takes a while...meaning daaays. FULL CURE of a paint/primer film can be a month....or more. * For taping use, the paint "forms a tough skin" in minutes...BUT NOT TO THE WALL yet. * This "skin" will EASILY get pulled-into by tape with paint on it, because... >>> The paint and/or primer HASN'T EVEN REMOTELY DRIED/CURED to the wall yet....but it IS dried to itself somewhat. I purposely wait 'till the NEXT DAY, score the tape/paint edge with a sharp snap-knife, and pull the tape. LASER-STRAIGHT edge-lines are the result, with ZERO pulling into the paint film. I've been giving this advice to our clients for years, and no complaints yet. * .....and we sell LOTS of paint. * That 3M Blue is our best seller, and my fave too. (to the tune of several-hundred rolls/yr.) Faron