re-painting a small area of ceiling-possible to get it to blend?

I just painted my 18' x 20' family room ceiling with flat ceiling paint. It looks great-except one area where there were a few small (maybe 1/2") areas where there wasn't any paint-my poor technique! Anyway, I have mistakenly tried to use a small 4" roller and went over the area- about 10" square. from below it looks fine, but if you look at angle and light is just right, you can obviously see it. it is something that maybe someone else wouldn't ever notice, but I know it is there and it is in high traffic area unfortunately. Any way to get this small area to blend or is the sheen always going to be different? do i either live with it, or repaint the whole ceiling? are those my only options?

 

You may have different stipple as well from using different rollers. Flat paint generally touches up better than higher sheens but if your technique or applicators was different, all bets are off. A common mistake with rollers is in trying to get every last drop of paint out of the roller before filling it again.

 

Because of the potential for long angle of sight ceilings are the hardest to touch up. All touch ups show but often the conditions aren't right for them to be seen by the naked eye. Since you think no one but you will see it, I'd be inclined to leave it. If it really bothers you - try using the same roller you used originally.

 

thanks guys. i replied yesterday but I guess it didn't show up. gonna try same roller, then decide if it is good enough. I think I suffer from perfectionism!!! It just really annoys me when I look at it!

 

You'll probably always know it's there short of repainting the entire ceiling The good news is once you get your focus on the next project you'll kind of forget about it ... or at least get to a point where it doesn't bug you so much.

 

If i repaint it, probably in a few months one of the kids will throw something up there and mess it up anyway, LOL!

 

I know what you mean, kids will keep you painting. When my kids lived at home I always used satin or eggshell enamel on the walls. Sometime after they moved out I decided to repaint the house with flat latex ...... and along came our grandson, grubby paws and all

 

well after looking at it i realized that the transition between original and repaint was the problem. Like said above and using roller too dry I thought that is issue because when trying to blend in, at some point you have to push the paint outward into the unpainted area and thin it out. So I thought let me tape off area that I want to paint and then inside of the area i can paint as normal and push out into the taped area. So I marked off a nice square with tape. I made the border 2 tape strips wide (about 4") so I could easily roll paint soaked roller into it. I painted it last night and immediately removed tape. I kept watching as it was drying and thinking-this is looking pretty good! when fully dry with uplighting, you can not seen any sheen difference. up close, you can see the lines. But that doesn't catch your attention like the sheen variation did. Today with sunlight it is same-no sheen variation that draws your attention but visible lines. i bet if I wanted to try again and enlarge my painted square and tried again, only using very fine brush (like use for model car painting) and lightly feathered transition, it would hardly be visible. but i think i am done.

funny marksr, I used semi-gloss for kids rooms and playroom. eggshell would be too way too risky for me! using satin in most places.

 

Different paints touch up differently. Some do best when feathered out while others look better if you just apply paint over the affected area. That is one of the good things about using a lot of the same brand/line of paint - you learn how it dries and all the little things that make it different from the next brand. I've never had any touch up issues with paints that I had applied 100s of gallons of ..... you learn what works and what doesn't.