It's less obvious if you go ahead and remove the tape from the whole area of the seam, re-tape, sand and texture.

Is there any easy way to remove the tape?

This project grows bigger and bigger.

Yea, you won't gain anything with an oil based primer. Honestly, I would just patch the spot without using tape. If anything, I would use some mesh tape to fill the gaps if the areas are large repairs. Another concern you may have is that usually when areas of the seams are 'bulging' that usually means that you need to cut out those areas because there is something underneath that is pushing outward. This is usually because two pieces of drywall are pushing together at the seam creating the bulge. Sanding the bulges down generally is not the best fix because as soon as you apply paint/moisture to that area, the bulge may just come back or it can bubble.

Thanks guys. I am so afraid to introduce more tasks on my painting project. My simple project(at least it looked simple at first)has grown more complicated day by day. Last night we just ruined our old-but-still-decent ceiling by rolling a layer of BM ceiling white. It looks so horrible that we couldn't stop laughing about it. So for the damaged bulging wall, if I can get away without tape that would be wonderful. Paintguy you are right. It does seems like two pieces of drywall are squeeze against each other. Well, I've lost confidence to deal with it. I will keep an eye on it and probably repair it in 5 years.

Paintguy - no oil-based primer? A couple years ago when I was getting my internet education in drywall repair, I read on the Home Repair forum that drywall mud needed a barrier over it to avoid flashing when water-based paint was later applied.

I used to do home repair with my hubby(a contractor); we would sand it down. If the tape is gone. cut the mesh type(it's best) apply. mud the tape and sand smooth. Did it bulge due to water damage? If so, use kilz on the area to stop any spredding. then paint with either latex or oil base(i hate that smell personnally).

Nope, no oil based primer. The days of having problems with flashing are long gone....that is really an old school lesson. You can prime your patches with primer or the actual paint itself. I usually do two full coats and never have flashing issues. If you do prime, an acrylic/latex primer is fine.

I had a painter paint two rooms in my house using BM Regal. He did not prime the areas he repaired and there is flashing in some spots. He did do two coats.

He screwed up my trim so he is gone...then I found Muralo based on a recommendation of this site.

Then when I painted the rest of the house with BM Aura. I did prime the walls with two coats of BM fresh start. There were no flashing on any of those walls.

Steve

He may not have done two coats then if there is flashing. Another possibility is that the texture of the repairs does not match the texture of the rest of the wall so this could appear as flashing even though it technically is not. Also, if you use vinyl patching, this could flash through any paint....this is why we say Red Devil = bad.

If you exposed the seam in the sheetrock, you need to tape it. If you just skim over the seam with joint compound, it will crack at the seam and it will keep cracking no matter how many times you cover it back up (learned the hard way!). I like to use the self adhesive mesh joint tape, it's usually yellow, with setting-type joint compound. It dries/sets fast, and you can speed it up with a hair dryer. Then you can sand it with fine sandpaper, or use a damp rag if you're careful, to smooth it out. The mesh tape can take the sanding a lot better than the paper tape. The paper tape will fray once you hit it with sandpaper, or pucker if you get it wet. You can sand right down to the mesh tape if you want to. This leaves a very thin repair on your wall, and almost certainly won't show once you prime and paint.