Tearing out the Soffit

Since we love our house and plan to stay in it forever, I wanted to make sure I didn't have regrets with the remodel. One thing I have really been wanting is to get rid of the dropped ceiling in the kitchen area and raise the ceiling to the same height as the dining area. (sorry for the dark photos)

This was incredibly intimidating and is actually what has held us back for so long. I couldn't find much information online about tearing out sofits, besides that you need to check to make sure it's not hiding duct work or doing any load bearing stuff. We climbed into the attic and it seemed ok, but we still didn't dare do it on our own. We finally hired a friend to help us out and I'm glad we did. It was worth every penny.
It took us a full day of very dirty work (I say us, but I mostly mean my husband and our friend) but we did it!

After removing all the upper cabinets they cut a hole in the ceiling and let a bunch of insulation fall down. They then decided it would be a good idea to climb up in the attic with snow shovels and move as much insulation as possible out of the way. This worked out better. It was still a huge mess as they tore out the sheetrock though.

By the end of the day we were hot, sweaty and very dirty, but so excited that it worked out so well and there weren't any issues along the way. In one day we were able to tear out the cabinets, tear out the sofit, and put drywall back up making the ceiling all one equal level through the dining room and kitchen. The sofit wasn't hiding anything important, it was just cosmetic.

It was a huge mess to clean and mop up, but we were able to cook dinner on our own stove by dinner time (if you call buttered noodles and frozen corn on the cob dinner...)

It has been such a relief to have that huge project out of the way, but it's been a bit of a pain to live in a kitchen with a lot less cabinets and storage space.