We live in a house that was built in 1948 and we decided to repaint the interior because we want to give it a fresh new look. Well anyway, we are starting with the living room and the ceiling has a lot of areas with paint that is cracked and is barely adhering to the plaster. It peels off in large chunks and you can go through it with a putty knife like butter in some spots, but in other areas it's holding on pretty tight. Our major concern is a 4x4 square foot area that has had the most problems with paint adhering. The paint was all cracked and we peeled it off. Now there's a huge chunk of paint missing from the ceiling. What is the best way to go about fixing this? Should I just use some drywall joint compound and feather in the edges of the large chunk and sand it until it looks seamless? Or should we peel off the paint off the entire ceiling? The room is about 20 feet by 12 feet.