I'd remove the dropped ceilings, especially if you are trying to restore the house. It will help in the summer if it's hot where you live. We just insulated our attic and it made a huge difference in the temperature in the house.

I'd remove the drop ceilings if insulation will be added.

What a fascinating old house to be a farmhouse with such high ceilings. Yes, rooms with all that height were wonderful for getting rid of the hot air in a long hot summer. I'd love to see what you do with this old place. If you take pictures, could you please consider uploading some and giving us a link to your album?

@moccasinlanding: sure, i was planning on doing a before-during-after photo album anyway, so I'll just try to remember to post them on here as we go along. :) The majority of the exterior of the house has been redone, but we are somewhat lacking in the floral department, in my opinion. I intend to have a huge garden and waterfall setup before all is said and done. ;)

alisha, what I recommend to you is that you plan your garden in a general way and work toward that plan little by little. When I do my garden work, I will get the final look in my head, and then gradually plant the area. I start with the bigger plants that will take years to mature, and have them settled in a couple of years before I get the rest of the bed done. My shrubbery, in other words, has been in place for a long time now. This way, take advantage of sales during the year and plant them when the weather is hospitable to them. For instance, from now until late summer will be a very stressful time for any shrubbery planted. But early this year, I planted my pawpaw tree, two figs, and two satsuma trees, oh yes and 12 mature blueberry plants which have a light crop of blueberries if the drought does not dry them up.

What I suggest is to pace yourself, because doing a garden perfectly all at once is a big exhausting project. And I know you want to enjoy looking at your garden from your windows as you work away inside the house.

Be sure to keep us updated, we are still here and interested in your progress. Have a good summer.

@moccasinlanding:
we just tore down our small bathroom (and by we I mean me because my fiance had to work :) ) and are in the process of turning the tub into a tub/shower combo. Once we have the connections changed and the shower parts in place, we will set up the backer board and plastic wrapping to help waterproof it, add tile board and the beautiful tile he picked out, add a custom built cabinet in the space behind the tub and wah-lah! new tub/shower combo! :) Then all that will be left is to paint the other walls, add the new vanity and vessel bowl sink, hang the mirror and we'll be done. Now, if I can do it as easily as I can type it. I am working on posting some pics for you; most are on my phone's micro SD card and it seems to be acting up recently and won't recognize my laptop. As soon as I can I will add some for you. Thanks for your interest. :)

So cool that you are working away on your lovely farm house. If you cannot post to the forum, having a Photobucket or Tinypic.com album (both are for free) will do the trick, although you cannot make many comments with those albums. You can also get a free account with Webshots.com (which is where I have most of my photo albums).

A bathroom redo is a big project. When we discovered that our original bath in this house was about to lose the toilet through the floor, no floor beneath the tub, and the water lines were leaking in the wall leading to mold and mildew, it started my demolition of really thick cement plaster walls and stucco exterior. But now we have our finished small bath, and a nice new master bath. We live in this house totally different from before. And it feels good. I know that you will feel the same way when you get your bath restored.

Good luck.

@moccasinlanding:

I know it's been ages since I've been on here but between finishing up nursing school and the bathroom remodel I've barely found time to breathe, much less post anything. Turns out most of the bathroom floor was flooded and we had to replace all the flooring and some joists before moving forward. I have some links to share on fb if you have a fb acct you can ck it out by friending me or maybe this link will work for you. I have some other before pics but Idk where they are at right now. We had to redo the ceiling in the bathroom too so we decided to go ahead and keep the drop ceilings because it was more economical for now. I hope that in the future we will be able to restore the original ceilings but for now we have to keep them as is. Sigh. :/ How is everything out your way?

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.252647094763851.75493.100000556879896&type=1

Alisha, I'm on FB, just returned after an absence of a year or so. I'll try to see about friending you there.

Love your new old house. Congratulations on finishing nursing school, always nice to have new beginnings. You have much to look forward to.