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wrote:
I curse the previous owners of my house that put up the 12X12
interlocking ceiling tiles stapled to furring strips. Impossible to
take one down to run a cable line, phone wire, etc. If I were to redo
it, I would just spray everything in the ceiling flat black. Looks
great, no clearnace issues, and if you ever need to run something new
it is open. Get a can of black spray paint and spray whatever new
pipe, wire etc. so it blends in.

I also don't like the idea of using interlocking ceiling tiles. But a
drop ceiling is a completely different animal. We can easily remove a
ceiling tile from a drop ceiling because the ceiling tile is not
stapled onto the grid. It is just resting on the grid by gravity.
Actually, I have run network wiring through out my finished basement
(that has a drop ceiling) _after_ I had the drop ceiling in place, and
I didn't have any problem doing this. Obviously, I should have
installed the wiring _before_ I put the drop ceiling in place. But
that was before I got TiVo-like service (PVR) and high speed internet;
therefore, I didn't feel the need to have networking in my house when I
finished my basement.

I had thought of painting the basement ceiling in black. But other
people told me that this would make the ceiling even more apparent to
our eyes with all those pipes painted in black, and they recommended
painting the ceiling in light color. I don't understand the logic.
But when I sat in someone's basement (in a restaurant) that has its low
ceiling painted white, I felt fine. When I saw a ceiling being painted
black, it tended to be in a high ceiling with decorative banners that
block the view of the ceiling. Therefore, this logic seems to be
right. At that time, I didn't know whether I should paint it in black
or in white, and I decided not to deal with this issue, and I simply
install a drop ceiling. The drop ceiling turns out to be a better
choice than painting the ceiling. The reason it is better is that when
I run cable in the basement ceiling, I don't need to paint the cable; I
simply mount the cable in the ceiling behind the drop ceiling.

Jay Chan