Finally got around to fixing our sagging garage ceiling

I spent pretty much all of yesterday fixing the sagging ceiling drywall in our garage. I needed to get it fixed because the sag was pretty significant, like a couple inches, and it seemed to just be getting worse as time went on so I was afraid it would collapse. There didn't appear to be any water damage on either side, just that all the nails had pulled loose from the joists... ah nails, why does everyone love using nails? They are nothing but trouble! My fix of choice was to screw in some 8 foot long 1x2 furring strips along the studs to pull the drywall back up. This turned out to be more difficult than I thought as even using 4" screws I couldn't get the drywall pushed up high enough for the screws to grip into the wood. Thankfully my friend happened to have a couple of eight foot tall metal posts so he brought those over and I used those with some scrap wood and car jacks to raise the ceiling enough for the screws to grab.

Installing the first furring strip one took the longest to do because I had to figure out what worked and what didn't, but after the first one I got into a rhythm. First, use the two posts to hoist up the drywall under one of the joists. Next, spelunk into the attic over to that joist and use a long and skinny drill bit to drill several holes along each side of the joist so I would know for sure where it was. Then I come back down and mark the holes with bright orange tape so I could see them all while standing on the ladder holding the furring strip against the ceiling, positioning it as best I could, and drilling a single hole into it. That allowed me to screw it into the ceiling where I could rotate it slightly to get it lined up just right, then drill and screw the rest of the holes.

I was about 75% done when I ran out of screws and noticed I needed a couple more furring strips than I initially thought so had to make a trip to Lowe's. While there I saw a different kind of 4" screw which had a star drive head. It was a pack of 50 for a dollar more than the pack of 43 but I remembered reading somewhere that star drive screws never strip, a problem which I had been having on several of my Phillips screws, so I decided to try them out. Oh man what a difference! Every single one went straight in and pulled the drywall up easily without me having to apply a ton of pressure against the drill. I wish I would have known about those when I first started, it would have made this job a lot easier.

So now the furring strips are all attached and the ceiling is level again. I'll have to do the same thing on the other side of the garage as I noticed a little sag on that side but I shouldn't have to use posts to lift that up as the sag is fairly minor. Then I think I'll paint the strips to match the color of the ceiling and will have to repair the drywall spackling from where the drywall nails popped through when the drywall was raised. I'll also have to spray wall texture of those fixes because of course the ceiling had to be textured.