So I asked my electrician to move my dining room light over about 8-10". When I came home, the light was moved, but he told me he had to add wire to the junction box (v. rewiring the entire light) which then meant he could not have my contractor patch the ceiling where the junction box is located because it's not to code.

He said he did it this way because there seems to be other wires that are in that junction box (wires that aren't for the dining room light fixture, I think?) and he would have to source them to rewire everything.

I asked around and this all seems right, but other than paying him more money to spend a bunch of time to rewire everything, what can be done?

I hate the way the metal plate looks on the ceiling (it's white, but still very obvious).

Thoughts?

The only mays to mitigate this:

If this is the top floor there may be accessibility in the attic that you could "flip"
the box over and leave access there.

You can paint or texture or whatever you want to camoflauge the plate as long as it stays removable.