Our story so far: After demolishing the interior of most of the old Methodist church we hoped to turn into a home, my husband Tyler wondered how to safely tear down the 20-foot ceiling of the sanctuary.

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After much backing and forthing, which included negotiating with two different rental companies for motorized “man lifters,” stalking the sellers of used scaffolding on Craig’s List, briefly contemplating temporarily building out the loft floor across the entire sanctuary and me volunteering to climb scaffolding and use a hammer, Tyler met with a local drywaller.

We intended to drywall the ceiling of the sanctuary, and we also intended to hire out that role.

Fortunately, the drywaller was willing to work with us. Not only was he willing to demo the ceiling, he was willing to rent us his scaffolding so our electrician could run wiring and Reroofer could install the faux wood beams on the sanctuary ceiling. All within budget. Score!

After all those weeks of hand wringing about demoing the ceiling, in an hour our three drywallers had assembled scaffolding to reach to the ceiling and climbed aboard. They climbed up and down like children on a jungle gym. Down came the false ceiling on the balcony side of the sanctuary, the trimmed-out beams (thoughtfully constructed by some church woodworker, but just not the style we were going for—we saved the pieces for reuse), the fiberboard paneling and the ceiling tiles of the angels.

So simple.

By the end of the day, the demo phase of the church renovation was officially complete. Our ceiling had never looked so clean and pristine.

Tyler and I admired it from the safety of the floor.

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Tomorrow: Nailed it! Read the story here.