The pictures look like shit, but it looks like they attached small blocks of 2x4 to the ceiling (hopefully to the joists, but who tf knows), and then either screwed nailed or glued the drywall to the small blocks. Why tf you wouldn’t just use a furring strip, idk

Sell the car and buy a beater for $500. Insured collision only. When you move, sell the beater - you could probably still get $500 for it, or $200 for a quick sale

Check all the outlets you removed to see if any had the tab broken. If they did, you need to break the tab on the new one

Odds are one of them was a switched outlet and you’re now connecting together the two different sides of your box

Use Glassdoor to get an idea of the work environment, but heck to the yes - I’d take the 11% hike alone. The 401k match is a huge cherry on top

I presume the fire is turned off? Have you bled all the air out of both radiators?

There’s a damper in our chimney that we can close when the fire is off - it stops draughts. If the fire is on, the bigger problem is generally that the thermostat sees that the room is hot, so shuts off the central heating. If that’s the case you may want to reposition the thermostat

So, either block up the chimney or move your thermostst