I am having the kitchen ceiling replaced in a old house that I bought and that I will be renting out. The old ceiling has been taken down and what is left is the ceiling joists. It used to be a wood lath and plaster ceiling. I can see where they used some strips of lath to pack out the uneven joists when they first installed the original ceiling.
The ceiling joists are uneven -- not by a whole lot, but maybe as much as half and inch difference between the various joists. I want to have a new sheetrock ceiling put in and do not want a dropped ceiling.
I was assuming that the way people usually install new sheetrock ceilings is to raise the sheetrock up to the joists and pack out any spaces between the joists that are too high and the sheetrock so the sheetrock will be flat. Is that what contractors usually do?
The guy I have who will probably put up the new ceiling suggested buying steel studs and sistering them along the existing joists in a way so that the bottoms of all of the steel studs form a flat, level, and even surface. Then mount the sheetrock to the steel studs.
Is that what contractors sometimes or usually do in this type of situation? I never heard of that before, so I thought I'd check here to see what others think about this approach.
Thanks.