In my kitchen, I have exposed the beams in the ceiling's floor structure. My first thought was to build a lowered ceiling with studs in the spaces between the existing ones, but in the middle, there is cross bracing, which means my studs only fit halfway. I see a few options:
1) Hang the dropped ceiling from the existing floor structure. It would then be anchored at the edges and right in the middle. Likely a significant deterioration in sound insulation.
2) Remove the cross bracing. I don't really want to do that and a more rigid floor structure is also good against sound.
3) Hang the subfloor in acoustic profile. It would feel a bit wrong to have metal parts in my wooden house.
4) Other suggestions?
