The Ceiling...Can it really be?

This little hole started it all.   IT. ALL.   A year-ish ago I got a wild hair, as I tend to do frequently. (Sorry babe.)  I wondered what might be hiding above the dropped ceiling in our kitchen. It started innocently enough...I took down the drop in the entryway....to expose a BEADBOARD ceiling.  It was a joyous occassion.    That project went SO great that I decided......

....to just take a TEENSY WEENSY peak at what was above the ceiling of the kitchen proper.  Soooo....I poked a little hole....that got a little bit bigger....until it was big enough to squeeze my camera up inside the drop ceiling..... 

....to take a picture of this.  Between the drop ceiling and the original ceiling there was approximately 40 tons of blown-in insulation.  Dirty, filthy, dusty, yucky insulation. 

But, being of the insane variety that i am now sure I am, I proceeded on.  Shoveling the insulation onto the floor as I went.

Thing were promising.  My vision was to take down the ENTIRE drop ceiling....the drywall layer, the fiber board layer, then all the framework that comprised the drop.

I worked and worked, devising a strategy as I went.....FYI, if you take ONE layer down at a time it's much easier.

I made an enormous mess (and cleaned it all up).....everynight.....for about two weeks.  I think I may have died and been reincarnated...because I have no idea how I survived. 

THEN....after all those days of work I came to THIS.  GIANT, GAPING, TEAR INDUCING, HOLES in the original ceiling.  Our kitchen has its own roof...a roof I never wanted to see from the UNDER side.  From as far as I can discern, a genius home improver before myself had crawled into the little crawl space above the kitchen, broke huge holes in the original plaster and lathe to allow for the blown in insulation to migrate in between the two layers of ceiling.   Broken.  Huge broken holes.  This discovery took years off my life, for reals. 

What do I do now? I asked myself.  The only real solution is to replace the ceiling, as is, on the framework of the drop.  I was okay with that...sorta.  I REALLY wanted it to be back to its original height...but alas, it was not meant to be.  So I put up some plastic to contain the bits that kept falling from the ceiling as I was cooking.... 

Fixed the gaping holes with small pieces of drywall.  Wow, that was not fun to do alone.  I still really can't even talk about it....that's how traumatizing it was. ;-)  Insulated and insulated and insulated. 

This VERY morning, this is how my kitchen looked.  Cabinets lookin' primo with new paint and hardware....new dishwasher installed....walls beadboarded and painted, trim replaced and painted, new sink, faucet and countertops installed,  floor coming along.....but no ceiling.  It's been a year.

Oh yeah, and then there was the little ReStore cabinet redo....that was a proud moment. 

THEN, two super heros arrived and saved the day.  Zach and Rich did, in about three hours, what I had waited for...for what seemed like an eternity.  I had tried to hire another contractor to do the job....but he blew me off after saying he'd show up on Thursday (about 50 Thursdays ago)...and was never heard from again.  Just so happened the gals at Mill Creek were talking about Rich doing drywall...and I was all over that like white on rice.  Local, honest, hardworking, trustworthy Rich was going to come to my rescue.

Look at that baby.  A ceiling.   A real ceiling. 

Prefill done today....tape and mud tomorrow.  Oh joyous tape and mud.  And look at those shoe thingies....that takes skills.  Balance and looking up at the ceiling and carrying around the little muddy tray....skills.

Paint by the weekend.  Then comes the fun part......accessories! 

Lights, bamboo blinds, shelves....oh I can't wait.