That does sound exciting. More space is always great. Drywall isn't that hard to put up, I have some friends who have done it themselves and yes, they are women! For the ceiling can you use a staple gun and put up some material from beam to beam instead of trying to put in an expensive ceiling? Check out carpet stores for big pieces of remnants of cheap carpet and make a mosaic pattern. It's really cheap to do it that way. Just glue it all down.