And then the ceilings came down...

Wow, 80-plus years of debris piling up on top of a ceiling that was dropped 6 feet (the Z&H space has original ceilings 15 feet high, due to the addition of plumbing for the apartments located above the MarketCafe and later the addition of air conditioning and furnace stuff for our space, the ceiling was dropped down to 9 feet) creates a huge mess when you remove said ceilings. Removing these ugly, heavy (2x4, 1x4, plywood) dropped ceilings, aside from creating a huge pile of junk, exposes the beauty of this old retail space. Some of the original, turn-of-the-century electrical fixtures had been entombed in the ceiling. We are going to raise most of the ceiling to 10 feet and have the ceilings in front portion of the space raised up to 13 feet. It will create a nice atmosphere for being surrounded by delicious food and beverages.
But at the heart of the matter is a lot of dirty, dirty work. Fun, but dirty.