Main Bath update!

I woke up feeling better today (still coughing and dealing with a voice that isn't always there when I need it, but still much better!), so I decided to tackle the bathroom. I think the last time I actually talked about the bathroom was here, back on October 9. Now, it hasn't been an entirely quiet three months on the bathroom front, but to assume that three months have passed and we're still stumbling downstairs in the middle of the night to use the facilities would be accurate.

I came back from my trip to find the marble tile in, but we learned an important lesson about natural stone and lippage (the idea that not every piece is the same thickness and that you have to watch how level everything is). After debating, researching, talking to tile contractors we decided, finally, that we could live with tile.

Next step? Paint the walls. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. We took the old medicine cabinet off the wall to find that the PO covered up a huge hole in the wall (and some sketchy electrical work--shocker) with the medicine cabinet we so disliked. A quick visit with an electrician and a long, long, long process with a friend who has drywall experience (and, to be fair, a part time job that turned into long days and weeks in December that kept me from being at home to work more on the house), and we are finally ready to paint.

I picked up primer last week and today threw it up on the walls. One problem (of course!): In one part of the wall--the one part that won't be covered up by vanity and mirror--the paint is bubbling and peeling. Like, I've primed over the existing paint, and the existing paint is bubbling. When I pop the bubble, the existing paint peels.

Now what? Can I ignore the bubbles instead of popping and peeling? Will they grow or will they go away? What caused them anyway? Am I using the wrong primer? Will painting over the primer cause the same problem?