I’m not sure how you would take care of that without repainting. Have you tried washing around it with dish soap?

Are there live wires underneath that cover plate? Or did the electrician pull all of the wires out?

I have tried washing. The previously covered section was never primed/painted so the plaster was washing away with water (IDK what its called-forgive my ignorance).

If i did repaint, can I just paint this area and it not look weird?

That’s a patch, and retexture needed areas, and then repent it all.

We had a whoops with a red wine opening in our kitchen area only two years into a paint job. I washed and sealed with primer and then attempted to paint only the 4x6 area. Nope. The fix shows. The whole ceiling needs to be repainted. On the plus side the purple polka dots don't show so the primer did the job.

We had our whole ceiling redone prior to installing new lights in our kitchen. The ceiling extends into the family room so it was all redone. We updated the lighting in both rooms. I do not know if there is a quick fix.

You havent said whether there are wires under that metal plate. That needs to be patched, and the ceiling retextured in that spot. Its not a bad ceiling to retexture. It is called a stomped ceiling and you can buy the brush tool from a big box to do that. Read up on utube or just an article with pictures, that will show you how. Stomped ceilings were usually done, and not painted. Usually they ended up painted after a couple of years, and yes, if you use water on it, you will disolve the mud that was put on for the texture. I wont tell you, they are as easily primed and painted as a flat ceiling, but, it really isnt all that bad either. Our last house had that type of ceilings. After roof damage from an icestorm, there was a leak. I couldnt just spot paint either. The room was 16x26, so fairly large. I ended up repriming and painting it all. It took full 2 full days. One for primer and one for painting. Through all the years we lived in that house, I repainted every single ceiling in there. It is doable. Time consuming, but do able. I love your light fixtures by the way. I see you did change the center from where the old center would have been. Is there a reason for that? If you would have left it center where that plate is, you wouldnt have a blank plate to deal with.

Cat_ky

There are no open wires in that area. The cover is a whole where the original box was located, The ceiling really needs to be patched but that was the simplest fix my husband could do until we hire another professional to patch and paint. For whatever reason, when our house was built, the owners chose a flush mount fluorescent light and the builder did not make it centered over the island. So when I chose the 3 pendant lights from Pottery Barn, new holes had to be created to keep the lighting centered.

It seems the consensus is that I need to patch, prime and then paint the entire ceiling. Thank you for your input everyone!

Just to clarify, you’re saying there are no wires in the box under the cover? Were asking because you can’t put a drywall patch over it if there are wires. If all the wires were removed then you’re good to go with the drywall patch!

no wires. everything was rewired when the lights were installed.

A temporary fix would be to buy ceiling pant and repaint the dirty area, but try not to make a square but rather extend a little over it, then try to diffuse the new paint into the older areas without applying more paint to the roller in order to kind of blend the new paint with the old paint.

Hi - not a professional, but I had to move a couple pendants in my kitchen and the area was patched and painted, but not the entire ceiling. You could see where the new paint was for a little while but it eventually faded to match the rest. However, the pendants I moved had only been up for a few months so maybe that’s why the new paint eventually blended?

It's really not that hard to paint an entire ceiling. Buy a couple of gallons of "ceiling white". Use a 3/4" nap roller. I bet you can get away with not cutting in at the edges, but I could be wrong.

I am happy to hear that you do not have wires there. That plate may have had to stay there permanently and that sort of spoils your ceiling and brand new lighting. Patch and prime and paint. You will be very happy you did it. Even if you have to hire the patching etc, the painting is something you could do.

I bet you can get away with not cutting in at the edges, but I could be wrong.

I've done that in my rentals. There may be a limit to the number of times you can do it before the edges become obvious, but if so, I haven't reached it yet.

First thing I'd do is sand/scrape the texture off the ceiling, too 70's looking.

I hate painting ceilings so I would try to fix it first but not using a roller. I've had good luck using a sponge to blend or dry brushing and feathering the new paint into the old.

I agree with Raye Smith. I would remove the texture and have that long rectangular patch fixed. In the process, the old junction box can be removed to eliminate that cover plate.