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I’m replacing the ceiling in a room that is an addition to our 1920s home (one side of the room used to be the old exterior and front door of the house) — previously it had 12×12 tiles stapled into the ceiling, but we’re trying to replace them with an easy-up track system from Armstrong. This requires that we mount the tracks on the ceiling jousts.

The ceiling appears to have a wood veneer underneath the old tiles, and trying to use a stud finder isn’t yielding any results. I resorted to drilling small holes until I felt the resistance of a joist under the veneer and it seems like they’re consistently between 26 and 27 inches apart.

I guess my questions are: is that totally out of the ordinary? And is there a better method for finding the studs? Additionally, there is a ceiling light — how do I go about finding which way the wire runs so we don’t accidentally drill into it as we put in the tracks?

Thanks in advance, my wife and I are very new to this kind of thing.

https://i.imgur.com/kdTtEAu.jpg https://i.imgur.com/p9TxU0Y.jpg