We are having the interior of our house painted. The ceiling of our living room was done, back in the day (circa 1922), by building the ceiling, stretching (gluing?) canvas over it, skim-coating the canvas, and painting it. Our painter today pointed out to me a couple of places where the canvas is detaching from the underlying surface and beginning to sag. So far, it's not too bad, but the painter said that the moisture in the paint and the weight of another layer of paint might make it much much worse. So, we're going to hold off on the painting for now, and see how dingy the present paint looks against newly painted trim, and decide what to do from there.

However, this is an issue that will have to be addressed, and I'm not sure what to do, or how much to expect to pay for repairs. We are not DIYers, we don't have the skills, knees, backs or time for it, and we are happy to pay people who know what they're doing. I don't want to automatically assume that we have to drywall the ceiling. Anyone out there have any ideas about our choices?