I'm going to be painting the ceiling of a 9' x 10' bedroom soon, but I'd
like some advice on preparation before I start. The room is upstairs in a
corner of the house, and instead of being totally level, on the two edges of
the house where the eaves are, it slopes diagonally about 30 degrees down
about 1'6" in from the wall down to about 1" lower than the height of the
rest of the ceiling. I've attempted to reproduce it in ascii art here,
except the angles may be wrong.

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Also in the corner of the room, one of the main roof beams protrudes about
6" through the ceiling where the ceiling slopes to meet the eaves. This is
at the juncture of the two sides which slope down as described above.

The ceiling was papered with lining paper in 1998, but due to the beam, it
was more convenient for the decorator to paper the ceiling which drops down
at an angle with paper running perpendicular to each other, rather than
having each one run parallel. As a result, all the other pieces are running
(parallel to the window) with a piece perpendicular to the rest at one end.

I would like to know some way of covering up the joins in this lining paper
as they are visible, the ceiling was painted once in 98, but it didn't hide
the joins. Some of them are coming away at the joins and some air has got in
where the ceiling slopes down and flexes when you press it with your finger.
Also, the previous decorator didn't do such a good job of cutting around the
light fitting and it's jagged. Furthermore, when the wallpaper was stripped
off, a small amount of lining paper was torn off, about 6" by 1', which I'd
like to cover up without having to repaper. On top of that, the ceiling has
been stained with nicotine and what I can only assume is soot from when my
younger brother tried to singe insects with a cigarette lighter(!!)
gathering round the light fitting.

So, what do I do to cover up all this mess before I paint, and what type of
paint do I paint it with?

Marcus