Morning Exercise

I'm afraid this might be getting addictive.  I popped over to the house this morning for a little ceiling exploration before work.

You can see from the end of the last post that I was a bit stymied on the library ceiling, due to the stupid metal lath stuff under the plaster.

I solved that this morning with a bigger poking stick and more gumption.  (For some reason there's a lot of dust in the first picture below...)

What look like joists (1x8s?  Didn't measure vertically.) are actually just hung from (4x4in?) cross-beams.

There appears to be a major side-to-side beam in the middle of the library, and one on top of the wall at the back of the living room.  The cross-beams run front-to-back and are smaller and mortised into the large beams.

Off of the narrower boards are straps across (1x4s?) to which the lath is nailed, then metal lath %@&*!, then the plaster.  This view is toward the front of the house, over the builtin to the beam on the LR wall.

The front-back beam has some modifications.

Spacing between cross-beams varied at 1-2 feet.

From the front-back beam, 18-20 inches to the crossbeam.

Doesn't mean much, but shows size of the hole in the larger view.