First task was to tear down the dropped ceiling. One would expect that this wouldn’t be too brutal, but in some areas above the dropped ceiling was plaster – and plaster is nasty nasty stuff.
My roommate Brian and I filled about 30 big black trash bags with plaster and ceiling debris. It was nasty. At its worst there was probably 2-4 inches of ceiling shards covering the entire floor.
Tools and some very minor debris.
The joists above as well as plaster remnants on the right.
With the main ceiling down, I had to make a decision on the soffit. The soffit is the part of the wall above a set of cabinets that extends outwards a bit. We had a little one above the range but none above the sink.
After some great advice from friends and family, I decided to tear down and rebuild the soffit as well.
Tony S. looks forlorn.
The soffit before the tear down.
Shamus and Jesse help tear down the soffit.
Soffitless.
Tony helps by cleaning up the area above the cabinets.
Finally, we were ready to start building the new soffit. My dad had come down to CT with his van, so thankfully we were able to easily transport the needed 2×4’s back to the House of Rock. At this point, we were ready to begin construction of the new kitchen.