Hi,

A friend is at her wits end about replacing a ceiling in her
basement. It is of the type where they put wood strips across the
joists, and then staples a 1ft square interlock style tile to it. It
seems no one does the 1ft square anymore. She tried to do some sort of
a replacement on it, and although her intentions were good, she really
didn't do a good job. SO, I want to help her out.

There is no way I can do a drop ceiling, since the overhead
clearance is bad to begin with (I'm 6ft 4in and barely make it, then
when I get to the steel beam I have to duck or it'll be disasterous).
So do I just rip all the tiles down, rip out the wood strips (Oh, and
of course for some reason they aren't spaced apart consistently.. some
are 12" apart, some 16", others who knows!) and start from scratch? Is
there a track based system that doesn't need 3 inches between the
joists and the frame to be able to pull the panels out...

Honestly, I'm not really good with carpentry. I don't even do it
on my OWN house. So it would need to be something FAIRLY dummy proof.
Maybe there is an option I haven't thought of? (I suggested putting
contact paper on the ceiling and that didn't go over well. )

CC's to the email address appreciated.

Thanks, Tuc