i know this is a silly question, but did you prime the walls before painting with your color coats.

the drywall is paper and the patches are patch compound,and primer helps to seal the wall to mostly even it out.

No, I didn't think it was necessary to prime the whole wall just for a few nail holes.

I watched the guys doinf renovations in our office, and they didn't prime either. Although they did spot paint the spackle with one coat before painting the whole wall and you can't see a thing.

Well weekend you have your answer. If there are just a few spots you can just apply a coat of finish paint over the patches before you paint the entire wall.

OK, so is there any way to fix the walls that I've already painted? Can I just spot paint a second coat on the spakled areas, or will that just show up as a differnce in coverage as well?

Anyone have any input ......?

I wonder "what" is the defect.......

Is the paint just showing a difference in shade and tone.......

OR is the real problem the spackle has left a visible "hump" or "ring-around-the-patch" or maybe a too smooth slick of plaster....

For seamless patching I like to use a sponge to blend the repair into the texture of the wall......

At this point I believe I'd sand the affected areas to feather the repairs and then spot paint the areas (Several times if necessary).......followed by an final top coat ......

Be sure to stir/mix the paint completely to avoid color matching problems........

It looks like the spackled areas are not showing the sheen of the paint the same as the rest of the wall. The spackled areas are not as shiny as the rest.

Its not a diffence is surface height. Well not the ones I did anyway. There are some humps appearing over nailheads from the original owner's installation, but that is not my concern right now.

So you must be useing an eggshell/satin finish on your walls. When you use a paint with a sheen over a flat paint you need to apply an ACRYLIC primer over the entire wall even if you don't have repaired places and if you do have patches you should prime them before you do the entire wall.

You should at this point sand the entire wall and follow the above procedure.

Actually, it is semigloss over semigloss.

So if I understand you corectly, I should have spot primed the patches before appying the final coat. Correct?

At this point, would it do me any good to spot prime the patches with acrylic primer and repaint the wall? I really don't want to sand the whole wall...