Those stairs lead to the cupola.  They are EXTREMELY steep - like 11 inches!  This staircase will come out and be replaced with open "ship stairs" which bend around, so they won't be so steep and scary. Opening up around the stairs.  We must be careful not to remove the support from the ceiling! Pulling out the old dropped ceiling.  Mike will leave the framework up there until we slide in the sheet of drywall above it, then remove the old framing. View of the staircase from the landing. Same, bigger angle. Looking down at the landing.  What a mess. Close up of mess (?) ! Cousin Bill inspecting. That ceiling is really HIGH from stairs. Getting ready for Bob to show us how to set up scaffolding.  See the scaffolding on the left side of stairwell and across upper bannister? View of scaffolding and upper hallway ceiling.  We had to crawl under the scaffolding to get up the last few stairs.  Then climb on top. The ceiling is dry-walled already. Now for the walls. Bob does the mudding. More mudding. We set up fans to hurry the process -- just to keep up with Bob. In three days -- set up scaffolding, drywalled, mudded, primed, painted, put up crown molding, and took the scaffolding back down!   Whew.  That Bob is a slave driver.