85 years of dirt on my head

(you should sing the title of this post to the tune of "99 bottles of beer on the wall.")

All but one of the rooms on the first floor of my house have acoustic ceiling tiles Apparently, this was all the rage in the '40s and '50s when people were updating their homes. I mean, I'm glad it's not popcorn ceilings (I'm looking at you, 1970s...) but it's not a look that I find attractive. Especially when tiles in every room are sagging and discolored. The ceilings were one of those "we'll get to it eventually"-type projects when we first bought the house, but now that we're moving, everything has to happen now.

It all started--accidentally, of course--in the lower hall. I was peeling the layers of fake dark wood paneling off the walls (evil eye again cast on the '70s) and had to remove the crown molding at the ceiling. So I kinda wiggled one panel out of the ceiling and then 3 or 4 more to see what was underneath. It looked like a silvery-gray wallpaper with a faint damask print. Cool, I thought. Maybe we could just leave it like that.

Nope.

A few weeks later I was talking to my contractor about the ceilings and he said, "let's take a look at what's underneath." Before I could protest, he pulled out a utility knife and cut into the wallpaper and then through some fabric to reveal bead board planks underneath. Although this was a great find, it also meant I had to continue the project since my ceiling now had an ugly gash in it.

Here's a look at some of the materials I pulled down, including a diagonal strip of wallpaper that was at the top of the walls.

I avoided this project like the plague. Or like the asbestos that I feared was lurking in the tiles. But faced with several other half-done projects and no clear direction on what to do next, I decided to tackle the hall ceiling today.

• Confession: I do not know if my ceiling tiles have asbestos in them. I never had them tested, partly because I'm too cheap but mostly because I didn't want to be responsible for knowing if they actually do contain asbestos. Let's just go on the pretty good assumption, based on the careful inspection of my contractor and I, that they don't. (I know, I know. This was probably very stupid and I'll regret it in 20 years when I get mesothelioma or some other horrible lung disease.) I wore a respirator mask, was careful not to break any tiles, swept twice then mopped afterward and showered myself. That's about as safe as I'm willing to play it.

Regardless of the composition of the tiles, they (and the wallpaper, and the fabric) were holding up a lot of dirt. I like to think of it as 85 years worth of dirt even though I know the tiles were not installed when the house was built. Just humor me, because it FELT like 85 years of dirt as it fell onto my head, down the front of my shirt, and all over the floor and stairs.

Here's the project, mid-tear down. You can see the exposed bead board at the top, the fabric & wallpaper layer hanging dangerously over an exposed light bulb (don't try this at home, kids), and the ceiling tile toward the bottom.

Also shown are the not-yet-painted bead board walls, the painted bedroom door trim (yay, me!), the presumed former doorway which we discovered at the end of the stairs when we pulled down the fake wood paneling, and the stairway railings, of which I have painted less than 1/3 (boo, me).