Stipple ceiling patch took 4 tries before it blended in - is it worth the hassle?

I was fixing a small hole in my living room ceiling from an old light fixture, figured 30 minutes tops. First try I mixed the texture too thin, second try too thick, third try I held the hopper at the wrong angle and got these weird splatters. Ended up spending 3 hours total scraping off bad attempts and finally got a passable match on the fourth go. Anyone else find stipple repair way harder than it looks or do you just leave it as is?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana_park8d ago

Oh boy, that brings back memories. My friend Carol tried to fix a stipple patch in her hallway after taking down a smoke detector, and she ended up with a spot that looked like mashed potatoes on the ceiling. She spent a whole Saturday going back and forth to the hardware store, buying different texture sprays and even trying a sponge. Finally she just painted the whole ceiling a flat white and called it a day. Said it was the best three hours she ever wasted.

drew_west8d ago

Oh come on, I gotta disagree here! Painting the whole ceiling is such a cop-out. Carol should have just owned the mistake and tried a different approach. I've fixed plenty of stipple patches by matching the texture with a drywall knife and some joint compound, then blending it in with a damp sponge. It takes patience but it's not rocket science. Why waste three hours painting a whole ceiling when you could have spent maybe 45 minutes getting the patch right? What did she do with all that leftover paint, just let it sit in the garage?