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bluechandelier

Painter made stripes on ceiling

8 years ago
I usually paint myself, but due to so recent physical limitations, I chose to hire a painter to paint my living room.
I have lath & plaster walls/ceiling. There were 2 hairline cracks in the ceiling that really didn’t even bother me. I didn’t ask them to fix them, but they assured me they could caulk the cracks and did not indicate there would be any problem is doing so.
Now I have 2 stripes running across my ceiling ! The ceiling is painted white, but appears more like gray and the cracks are now 3” wide stripes.
I am so upset and don’t even know how this can be fixed. I tweaked the contrast on the second photo to try and enhance the color difference. It’s like they ruined my living room.
Any ideas on what went wrong & how to fix? Also, the painter I hired seemed to give the job to his “partner” and he said he wasn’t sure why the ceiling ended up like that either. Ugh!

Comments (14)

  • 8 years ago
    Correction: The 1st photo is the one with the enhanced contrast.
  • 8 years ago

    I'm assuming the stripes correspond with the existing cracks. It looks like your ceiling has a bit of "texture" to the surface and what they might have done is repair the cracks with some spackle or drywall mud, essentially making that section of the ceiling "flatter" than the rest. If you look carefully at a new house, you'll see the same kind of thing, where the joints are smoother than the rest of the drywall.

    Another coat of paint would probably help to even out any color differences but the real fix is likely a skim coat over the entire ceiling to even things out. When painting a ceiling, make sure they use a flat paint, which will help hide any imperfections.

  • 8 years ago

    hopefully they did not use caulk, that will take paint differently.

  • 8 years ago
    I believe they did use caulking. :/ I assumed they knew what they were doing. I agree that the ceiling was not painted thoroughly, as I can see the white peeking through that I got on the ceiling when I painted a huge paint sample prior to hiring them. I’m waiting for the owner to get back to me. At this point, I have very little trust in them and don’t want it to get worse!
  • 8 years ago
    Here is the other white paint showing through on the ceiling. I had painted a white on the wall to get an idea if I wanted white walls and bumped the ceiling (I knew I was going to have the whole thing painted so I didn’t care). This proves to me, the ceiling was done sloppy and not enough coats were applied.
  • 8 years ago

    Did they primer before paint? It is noticable, and I sure would not be happy. I dont understand why they would use caulking. It should have been taped and patched using sheetrock compound.

  • 8 years ago

    Those "stripes" look to me to be where you have had some movement/settling in the ceiling joists and the sheen from the new paint makes it more noticeable.

  • 8 years ago

    It's fine to use caulk for hairline cracks, as long as you fill the crack and have a wet rag or sponge handy to wipe all excess caulk away. You don't want any caulk in the field of the ceiling. It all needs to be in the crack. This is actually better because caulk flexes and patching compounds do not.

  • 8 years ago
    Thanks for all the comments everyone. The ceiling is plaster, not drywall, which is why they used caulking. The owner came and said the wide line I’m seeing is where his worker went over the line with a brush. And that they only did one coat (they gave me multiple reasons, trying to put the blame on me; is: their quote was cheap- so only one coat was done; they didn’t have enough paint for 2 coats, etc). They are coming today to do a primer coat over the “stripes” and a 2nd coat of pain on entire ceiling. Fingers crossed it all blends in after that.
  • 8 years ago

    If it's not made right after they come in this second time, you may need to pay a little more for the same people to come back, or just get someone different altogether to do the work to your satisfaction. These kinds of things are good to remember for future work of the same sort, so that you (hopefully) can avoid having to give the next guy a second run at doing it to your expectations.

  • 8 years ago

    Painters don't seem very competent

  • 8 years ago
    It will need to match texture with the rest of the ceiling or it will always have the stripe. Layers of paint won’t help much. It’s just like repairing Sheetrock on the wall and having the space look flat because it wasn’t textured. You could try to add texture to the stripe by buying a can of spray texture and ensuring you covering everything with plastic except the line. It won’t be perfect though unless retexture the whole space though.
  • 8 years ago

    The owner came and said the wide line I’m seeing is where his worker went over the line with a brush.


    That's explains it. The part that was brushed then dried before the rest of the ceiling was rolled. The stripes ended up getting two coats, a heavy first coat of paint and then a thin rolled or sprayed coat, where as the rest of ceiling got only one coat of paint.


    That's why you always need to keep a wet edge when you paint. Same thing has happened to me when I cut in the ceiling and the paint dried before I could get it rolled. More of a problem anymore because a lot of modern paint just dries faster. Add in ceiling work where the air is warmer and the paint dries even faster.