the sky is falling... a series.

when we woke up this morning, the ceiling in the great room looked like this:

peely. leaky. drippy.

we knew the ceiling was bad in the great room when we moved in. 
it's been slowly getting worse.
like a ticking time bomb of melting plaster. 
over the past eight months whenever we got a really bad rain storm or lots of rain over a period of days, we'd hear the occasional "splat", find a chunk of ceiling on the ground, stare at it mournfully, and continue about our day.  because money to replace the ceiling did not, however, happen to be falling as well.

this morning it was exceptionally drippy, because it was exceptionally rainy.  but not too many splats.  although it was looking a little more questionable than usual. 
we put down a bucket and went about our day. 
at six we left for childbirth classes in bryn mawr. 
we left tucker gated in the kitchen.
when we came back, the ceiling looked like this:

i should have taken a real picture, but you'll notice my hatted little head in the bottom left corner of the frame... i was already cleaning up (i don't even think i had put my purse down) and billy just snapped a shot real quick with his iphone.  it wasn't pretty.
tucker (who must have thought the end of the world was happening) had jumped the gate in the kitchen, peed all over the ceiling mess, and was found buried under pillows in our bed (that he's not allowed in).  i think he was pretty traumatized.

luckily, wonder husband and i cleaned everything up in no time. and let me tell you, old wet plaster ceiling is heavy.  and messy.   but we worked together and 20 minutes later it was looking like this:

 

the crappy iphone shot doesn't do the shiny mopped floors justice.

i'm actually super glad that the ceiling all came down in one big chunk, and not like a serious of jagged pieces that i would have to be cleaning up for days.  we knew it was going to happen eventually, and it was nice that it was all over and done with in one shot.

 

and we are calling the huge wood beamed owwee spot on the ceiling "character" until it can afford to be otherwise.