Farmhouse Ceiling - removing ceiling tiles

Last week I talked about the studio, but I am jumping over to another project that happened last weekend as well. If you follow me on Instagram, you already know we did a little exploratory demo in our living room.

The ceilings in the living area were clearly several inches lower then in the rest of the house and I assumed that the tiles were glued to the old plaster, so I wasn't thinking we would be touching them anytime soon.

BUT....Curiosity got the best of me ( a trait I am sure many DIYers share with me) and I just had to know what was up there.

It started with just one tile, which I soon discovered was stapled to 1x4 wood boards and they were very easy to pull down...

I could see the old plaster ceiling up above and it looked in decent shape, so we kept pulling tiles down. (my nephew was happy to help!)

This was completely impromptu so we didn't even bother moving furniture or rugs.

As we progressed, we realized that the ceilings would not be salvageable. It was pretty clear that when its time to remove the wood strips we are going to lose our plaster as well. Which isn't necessarily the end of the world because I have some ideas for this room anyways, but it does put a hold on more demo until we can determine what the insulation is sitting on (aka is there decking in the attic or is it just sitting on the plaster?) Either way, its going to be a mess so not the project for a snowy day.

This means we are living with this...

Its not pretty folks. Who wants to come over and climb up in our attic?


***Update***
My almost bro-in-law was kind enough to climb up and scope things out for us last night. It looks like the insulation IS sitting on the plaster. So that means it will all come down when we remove the plaster. He also discovered the original exerior of the house is still up there as well...siding and all. So  opening the ceilings just got a bit more complicated (not that is wasn'tt already). We knew the main living room was an addition in the 50's but weren't sure exactly how they had done it. It also explains all cracks in the plaster on the walls and on the ceiling. Fun fun.