Raising the ceiling

The ceilings in the upstairs were originally around 6'10", which felt pretty cramped, especially since downstairs they are 7'6" - 8'.  So I decided to raise the ceiling in the upstairs.  Luckily, because of the way the house was built, it actually isn't that difficult.  Above the ceiling in the master bedroom, there was a layer of (seemingly decomposing) wool insulation, then some unfaced fiberglass, and then the modern cellulose that's also in the walls.  This was actually really helpful since I wanted to reuse the cellulose after the ceiling was raised, but not the wool since it was dirty and gross.  Here's what it looked like after removing the old drywall on the ceiling and letting all the wool insulation fall out

And then with the fiberglass pulled out and all the cellulose knocked down (after cleaning up all the other stuff)

We (my Dad took some vacation time to come out and help me) decided to try and leave all of this there while we raised the ceiling joists and put up the drywall on the ceiling so we didn't have to bag any of it.  This ended up being a major pain in the ass and we would have been much better off bagging it.  Here's a look before we started raising them

Raising the ceiling joists were pretty simple, it was just pulling them down, cutting the ends, and then putting it back up in the new position.  Here's a few done, the new ceiling is about 8'4"

You can see the difference between the new and old height easier in this picture.  We didn't move the first joist yet, so it's still right over the windows

Finally all done

And now to put up some of the drywall, I bought a drywall lift from Harbor Freight and it was extremely helpful