My husband and I had recessed lights installed in our family room ceiling. In order to run the wires, the electrician had us cut strips of drywall out of the ceiling. My husband has replaced the drywall and used joint compound with tape. He sanded the entire ceiling and then rolled on diluted joint compound to create texture. It is now dried and unfortunately the repaired areas are very visible bumps. Also, he took down some fake beams and when removing them a thin layer of the old ceiling peeled off. Those areas are also visible through the joint compound. The question is what should we do now? Do we need to do more sanding or should we go ahead and put a coat of ceiling paint on in the hopes it will cover up the bumps?
Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Welcome to the forums!

The best way to get the least visible repair is to remove all the texture. Skim the ceiling with joint compound to create a consistent surface. Then, put the texture on that you want, or finish it as a smooth ceiling. If you do a knock down, or smooth, you will have to paint it.

 

He probably didn't float out the repairs far enough. Take a straight edge and set in over the repair. If the straight edge lies flat, paint will fix it. If the straight edge shows a hump in the ceiling, the repairs needs to be floated out further.

It's always a good idea to paint a ceiling no matter what texture is used. Any joint compound based texture is water soluble and needs paint to protect it from the moisture in the air.