patched a water stain on my ceiling and now i need to match the existing texture. its some kind of knockdown but not exactly like what i see in tutorials. Tried twice already with spray can texture and it looks completely different. the rest of the ceiling is from 1994 when the house was built. starting to think i should just paint over the patch and hope nobody looks up
8 Comments
Ceiling texture matching is probably the hardest drywall skill tbh. The spray cans never match old texture because the droplet size is different. You need to thin down regular mud and use a hopper gun with adjustable nozzle. Play with the air pressure until it matches.
i dont have a hopper gun and dont really want to buy one for this one patch. any other options?
you can rent one from home depot for like $40/day. totally worth it vs buying spray cans that wont work anyway. practice on cardboard first
How big is the patch? Sometimes the move is to retexture the entire ceiling. I know that sounds extreme but its actually pretty fast with a hopper and youll get a consistent look. My buddy did his whole living room ceiling in maybe 2 hours.
patch is maybe 2 feet square. retexturing the whole thing might be overkill but im starting to consider it honestly
Another trick - scrape off some of the old texture from an inconspicuous spot like a closet ceiling. Mix it with joint compound and apply by hand. Sounds weird but it helps match the exact material and color of the original.
This actually worked for me on a 1990s knockdown. The color match was way closer than anything from a can. Just make sure you prime the patch first so the texture absorbs paint at the same rate as the old stuff
gonna be the guy who says just retexture the whole ceiling. i spent 3 weekends trying to match a knockdown patch and it never looked right. finally scraped the entire ceiling, skimmed it, and resprayed a new knockdown texture over everything. took one saturday. ONE. i cant believe i wasted all that time trying to match a 2 foot patch when redoing the whole thing was faster and looks a million times better. if your ceiling is one room and not like a giant open concept just bite the bullet and redo it all. so glad i did