Earlier this year we suffered a catastrophic AC leak that ended up causing a entire sheet of drywall to fall out of the ceiling. Well we got the drywall replaced, but it is still unpainted. My question is, how closely can a place like Lowe's or Home Depot match a color? If I try to just paint the replaced area will it look the same? Would I just be better off repainting the whole ceiling so that the color is consistent?

I like the current color (oh it is a painted ceiling, same as the walls) but can I get it matched perfectly? Or even close enough that no one could tell? Or should I just repaint the whole ceiling, or room?

We had good luck at Sherwin-Williams.

Yep or Kelley-Moore

I'd repaint the whole ceiling.

This^^...and for the reasons Jon lists in the next post.

The modern equipment they use to tint paint nowadays has amazing accuracy to match but it still would probably be noticable if you just painted the one piece of sheetrock. If you don't want to paint the whole ceiling, at least paint on past the edges a bit to help it blend in. If it's not too large of a ceiling, I'd probably just paint the whole ceiling but you could try the partial are first and see how it looks. i would get enough paint to do the whole thing though. The walls should be fine because even if ceiling not a perfect match to wall, your eyes won't see the difference.

All I can say is it worked for me on some white trim, but not so well on a tan colored wall. The white trim I can't tell the difference. I tried touching up some places that needed it on the wall (tan) and it looks like the paint never dried (basically just a little darker). For me though, I'd have them match it in a small can and try it, because what do you have to lose? If it doesn't match, then paint the whole thing...

I guess part of the equation is how much ceiling are you talking about?

It is possible to match the color, best way is if you can take a piece of sheetrock or something with the old paint on it. matching the sheen is going to be the hard part even if it is flat like most ceilings there is differences between brands, depending on the amount of indirect light it could be very noticable

repaint the whole thing or you will notice the patch.

they can get a pretty good color match with the camera systems, home depot I know has it and regular paint store would as well. get a sample mixed and see.
you just need a small paint sample for them to match

Ditto. Depending on how big the ceiling is it’s not a great deal more money to do the whole thing. Otherwise your going to have a spot that looks like a patch job

The color match programs available at paint stores are really good. It is worth a shot before you go through the PITA of painting the whole ceiling. But you still have a problem to overcome... it is even more difficult to match the texture than it is the paint.

Use the color match and mix up a pint of paint, just enough to cover the patch. That will cost $10-15, and is the easiest potential fix. If it doesn't work, then you can just paint over the entire ceiling and all you are out is ten bucks. But even after you paint the entire ceiling, you may find that the slight color difference you thought you were seeing was caused by the texturing that doesn't match.

This

And Lannie on here is a artist with drywall

drywall and texture is already done, it looks okay to me, just a different color. I'll try a small piece first and then if it looks bad I'll repaint the whole thing it's been about 10 years anyway, probably needs to be done.

When I had a roof leak in a corner that affected about 3 feet of drywall on the 2 walls at the corner and a 1.5' x 2' section of the ceiling, my insurance covered painting the entire ceiling and both walls because you can't always get the colors to blend. The guy that did mine put a primer over the new texture because the texture material is more porous and can affect the color of the paint going over top of it.