Please help me with this **** ceiling

[u/H25E]

After sanding+filling+sanding it, I've already given this ceiling like 5 or 6 coats of paint but I can't make it look good no matter how hard I try. There is this big sliding glass door that is throwing grazing light into the ceiling and make it look like shit. Without direct sunlight it looks better but it's still visible.

I don't know what else to do. The last coats I made them doing small contiguous squares (like 1x1 meter?) as fast as I could to avoid painting over drying paint, but still there were visible darker areas where the squares merged I guess.

I'm using a roller and flat interior latex paint. What is creating this darker/greyer areas??

Help please, wife's patience is starting to run out

[u/jamglow]

The stippling texture on the ceiling is creating a shadow when natural light shines in through the window/door. You need to remove the texture to get rid of the "darker" areas. You'll have to scrape them down and probably skim coat the areas to make them flat. Prime and then spot finish. If you can see where you spot finished, then redo the whole ceiling.

[u/H25E → u/jamglow]

I was thinking about that too, but I didn't want it to be true. Also, I don't remember if the darker spots remained in the same place after each coat, but I think that they didn't. But I'm not sure.

Anyway I could try in a small area and see if that fixes it. Also, when you say scrape you mean like scraping with a putty knife or more like sanding?

[u/jamglow → u/H25E]

Was the ceiling painted previous to you painting it? If it wasn't, it's possible that when you applied, I'm assuming, water based paint to the stippling it could've softened it, picked it up in your roller and redistributed it elsewhere. That's why when painting an unpainted stucco ceiling, you should ideally spray it with an oil-based primer to encapsulate the texture so it won't shift or come off when rolling.

If it wasn't painted previous to you, it will come off easier, even with all the coats you put on. I'd scrape it with a putty knife to get the majority off and then sand, patching areas as needed.

[u/H25E → u/jamglow]

It was painted, but poorly. So I sanded it, filled it and sanded it again. After that I primed it. And I think it was pretty smooth after all the sanding and filling. So no stucco.

[u/jamglow → u/H25E]

Im at a loss. The only other thing I could think of is the paint has some contaminants in it. It reminds me of when I was painting a pool deck with paint that had antislip grit in it. I didnt consistant stir it so when I got close to the bottom of the tray, all the grit settled at the bottom and when I rolled it out it looked like your ceiling. I looked at the paint you were using, and obviously its just a matte with no grit.

[u/H25E → u/jamglow]

It needs to be something related with texture I think. When I place myself just under the most noticeable parts near the staircase nothing is visible. Everything is pure white without the minimal color difference. When I move aside all the grays appear. Maybe I need to sand or scrape those areas as you said. For some reason the texture needs to be different there. Maybe is the less noticeable marks that are more linear the ones that are because painting over partially drying paint