In which we strip away the layers

We made it our mission over the weekend to get the ceiling down in the front part of the building.  Each day a load of progress was made as we uncovered the beautiful floor joists above. As many of you have read, there were upwards of four layers of ceiling in any given area.  The original plaster and lathe ceilings were wet, moldy, disintegrating, or dry and crumbly.  We filled a 40 cubic yard dumpster in a matter of three days.  The waste management company had to come back with a larger truck to haul the dumpster away because it was too heavy.  I think we are up to 17 tons of debris hauled away.  

There is still an air of mustiness in the building, but that comes from all the grain and rat droppings that we found in the walls.  I am glad to let the building dry out.

But Greg's great line of the morning on Saturday was..."Look, anything is better than cat pee and incense!"  which is what the place smelled like at the beginning of September.  

The last two sections of ceiling were "repaired" because of an early leak.  Instead of taking the old material out and putting in a new ceiling, previous owners simply went right over the areas where the ceiling had been damaged.  Up went sections of blue board with wall board over it.  I appeared to be a homemade job because of the THOUSANDS of screws, lack of mud and tape (thankfully) and general wonkiness.  The below photo shows what we were up against.  A relatively new leak in the roof above made most of the wall board good and spongy with water...We shoulda worn slickers when taking this part of the ceiling down!

After successfully getting the wall board and blue board down, we were left with what you see below.  A layer of bead board and a layer of original plaster and lathe ceiling complete with old and damp faded wall papers.  

We took down everything, cleaned it up, and played hooky for the rest of the day on the boat!  

Yay! Last of the ceiling is gone!

The joists are in beautiful condition, and happy to have all that moldy stuff gone!  The cross beams, of course, have only two layers on them, a layer of bead board, full wall paper, and then each beam was cased.  You can see the bead board covered beams below.  

The space is nice and sunny in the late afternoon on a Fall day

One of the boards covering the cross beams.  The wall paper on the left is a rocaille decorated beauty with an amazing amount of detail to the scrolls and foliate design.  The pinky red wall paper fragment to the right is the earliest on the beam and at least two layers earlier than the one on the left.  

All done at the front of the space....I have to repeat this on the last section; the one behind the wall on the left there.  On the right in the photo below you can see what I did yesterday, which was to pull out one section of wall....sigh, the building is built much better on the second floor than on the first!