Hi everyone!

We are about to renovate our 1960's ranch. It was pretty chopped up, and while I know open floor plans are not everyone's thing, we have gorgeous views out the front of our house and want to be able to maximize the view from the main living spaces :) Our plan includes removing multiple walls and taking out a large pantry. We will replace the load bearing wall with a flush set beam (per the structural engineer). We also have *a lot* of oddly placed recessed lights that we will be moving. Since it is a ranch, we have attic above the space with loose insulation.

My question is: should we tear out all the drywall ceilings and replace with new drywall or could we have the drywall installers add a layer of 1/4" drywall over everything (obviously patching the areas where the walls came out first)? I assume that the latter option would be less in labor/materials because we don't have to demo the existing ceiling and deal with moving around all the existing insulation. We fully replaced the drywall when we renovated our bathrooms a few years ago but it was a huge messy pain.

Thanks for the input!