When I was a carpentry foreman at the University of Illinois, my crews used to install something like 20,000 square feet of suspended ceiling each year. They loved the stuff. One worker with a rolling scaffold and a few hand tools can put up lot of ceiling in a day, and a team of two — one on the scaffold and one to move it around and hand up materials — can do three times as much. Suspended ceilings are immune to cracks, nail pops, and other callback-producing defects associated with drywall. They provide access to plumbing, ductwork, and wiring, and their sound-absorbing qualities provide a cozy "feel." Although grid components can't be intermixed,
