Flavor 8

The tiles had been off for a week, but the metal infrastructure and fluorescent lights were still hanging from the ceiling. Logan & I spent the better part of a day removing them.

The aluminum frames of the ceiling were held together by linking pieces made of a much softer metal; basic technique once the lights were down was to twist an aluminum bar back and forth until the links broke.

Here’s a view from the top, at the back, showing the complete and total non-existence of the drop ceiling. Hooray (and other twee enthusiasms)! Note the wires still hanging from the ceiling; a future task is to crabwalk through the crawlspace and unfasten them from above.

The junk around the sides of the walls (including some that’s not visible, off to the right of the picture) amounted to 12 cubic yards of space (or, approximately, 1 1/2 loads in a 14′ moving van); it took most of a day to haul it to the dump.

At the left, notice the absence of the “overhang”. We removed the drop ceiling structure from the right to the left; when I removed one of the final rows of the aluminum framing, the entire overhang collapsed with an enormous CRASH (pipes fell off the wall at the next door tobacco store.) Fortunately nobody was under it at the time, although we were all pretty shaken up. To think that the drop ceiling had actually been supporting the structure is a little alarming…it would have come down in any sizable quake, and probably would have dragged the entire drop ceiling down with it. So, all in all, good decision to remove it all.