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I'm redoing my kitchen which adjoins the eating area. Part of this was removing the soffits or fur downs, which has now left my ceiling without large strips of drywall on 3 sides. Pic

The kitchen area is 10' deep and then another 10' of that is eating area, where the drywall is intact. I'm trying to decide if I just patch this or replace the ceiling in the kitchen. And how do I tie the new kitchen ceiling in with the eating area? I do plan to remove all the popcorn and go over with orange peel.

But I would need to stagger sheets of drywall, right so I wouldn't have one long line across the room between the two areas?

---Edit---

Tonight I tore down the kitchen part & cut back to the nearest stud. Here's a sketch of what I'm left to fill in (joists are dashed lines). Any advice on staggering? I plan to start on the left side and do 3 full sheets + 1 strip over the stove area. enter image description here

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If you have any small pieces of drywall up on the ceiling, I'd start by removing those to get back to as many full sheets as you can which should also minimize the cuts you need to make. As user41750 says, make sure you match the drywall thickness. The joints will only be staggered in one direction, along the 4' lengths where the drywall isn't tapered. You want those 4' long joints to meet on a joist or nailing surface.

The 8' spans will be perpendicular to the joists and be tapered. You can knock out the mud and tape from inside the taper of the existing drywall to get two tapered joints to align. If you don't have an existing tapered joint, then you'll want to cut away the taper to avoid a significant difference in height where you are mudding and taping later.

The mudding and taping is an art. There's a fair bit of advice on this site to help you there, but I wouldn't blame anyone for hiring out this part of the project. And from there, it's all about matching the finish. I'd personally prime and paint the entire ceiling, if not the walls too. This will help hide any division between the two spaces.

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  • +1 on hiring it done. Even if you have experience, skill, and patience; mudding, taping, and sanding is a huge PITA .
    – Jimmy Fix-it
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 20:06
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I would try to keep as many joints staggered as possible of course taping every joint so it won't crack in the future. Using the same thickness of drywall as is already there is extremely important. I don't see where you should have any trouble tying into the ceiling that's not missing the edges in the eating area as long as you use the same thickness drywall just tape it, mud it and finish it. You're going to be texturing it so that will also help hide any blemishes in the finishing job. From all that I see in your picture and what you described it looks pretty straightforward patch in job. You're final finish coat of drywall compound will not even have to be that perfect if you're going with the orange peel texture. Should turn out just fine. Good luck.

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    just to add, put down a good primer base to help give it a uniform look. The primer will help if one part of the ceiling is discolored from the other and also will hide all of your compound joints.
    – John P
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 15:53
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For as little as you have left - drywall is cheap - just rip it all down and start over. You'll get done quicker, and it will look better.

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  • I pulled it all down tonight. There were sheets run both different directions, I guess because of the fur-downs. Anyway, 6' of the edge hangs off past a joist, although there are cross members that were used to hang the cabinet. The other 7' across I cut down the middle of the joist. So I have 13' of cut edges to mate up.
    – brd
    Commented Dec 9, 2015 at 5:49
  • Looking at your edit - it looks like you meant to type 6 in., hanging over. You can put blocking behind the 5'8" part, and piece in that small section. Then a 2x4, the full length of the ceiling joist, to help secure the tie-in between the two rooms.
    – tahwos
    Commented Dec 10, 2015 at 23:04
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Some times I fill in the cut out spaces wiith drywall then overlay the whole ceiling with new drywall drywall is cheap and finishing new is often easier than scraping off old texture and dealing with gouges and old drywall stain tannin bleeds just make sure to mark joist and use a longer screw

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  • I really like this idea, but it would require me to re-tape & mud the eating area ceiling to wall edges, which I'd like to avoid.
    – brd
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 14:32
  • @brd test to see if texture comes offfclean and easy if so just fix the bad half or overlay it all and instal a crown molding to cover gap at wall
    – Kris
    Commented Dec 7, 2015 at 15:15

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