I have 8'3" ceilings in the kitchen and my cabinets go all the way to the ceiling. The uppers are 39" plus a crown (with your ceiling height you could do 36" plus crown). In fact, in the last week I've had 3 people ask how tall my ceilings were, thinking they were 9'. I like cabinets to the ceiling because it is one less place that DH can try to pile up junk (in his old house he had old wood crates above the cabinets). I prefer a clean look.

The cabinet maker may not want to do the cabinets to the ceiling if he is also doing the install. It is more difficult. If he is recommending 10" space above the cabinets then you will have 26" uppers? I'd prefer the extra storage.

I have 8' ceilings with cabinets to the top. I didn't want that space in there. Just another place to clean.

We also have 8' ceilings, and we went to the ceiling. We used 36" tall upper cabinets and used moulding and crown to take them up to the ceiling. To us, having 10" of space up there would be trading storage space for dust collecting space.

We have a small 1950's kitchen too - 8 foot ceilings - we did 36 inch cabinets with some molding and a slightly larger gap between the bottom and top cabinets (so we can get a mixer and other stuff under)... I love it. I didn't want to dust with a gap at the top and I like the look of molding. I also worried with 42 inch cabinets, it would look to closed in.

How 'bout a compromise and stagger the heights? I've seen that on pics on this forum and like the look myself.

Eight foot 5 inch ceilings, small floor area, cabs to the ceiling, and I don't feel closed in.

I have 8' ceilings; I'm planning to take the cabs to the ceiling once I get rid of the weird 6" soffit that's there now. If I had taller ceilings, I might leave space at the top, but I don't want to lose storage for dust.

Thanks for the thoughts. Vjrnts, thank you for the pictures. Your kitchen looks GREAT!!!!! Sue36, you gave me something to think about that had not occurred to me. I have recently seen a post where the ceiling was not level (whose ceiling is?) and cabinets to the ceiling were not flush...to your point that it is harder to install cabs to the ceiling. That just might be why my cab guy says not to go to the top??? Something to ponder, anyway. The other arguments seem to center around dust and extra storage. I am one of those people who TOTALLY decorates the top of my cabinets with all kinds of "stuff." I do love it. I'm glancing over at my cabs right now and I see a Krispy Kreme donut hat, a jar of dippity do, an old antique scale and my aunt's first place ribbon from the county fair just to name a few. Those of you who like a clean kitchen look might get sick to your stomach. HA! I think I am leaning to the cabs to the top in the lake place. I do need the storage room, and 10 inches or less is not much space to display "stuff." I'm afraid it will look kinda skimpy.

I have 8 foot ceilings and my cabinets are exactly 10 inches below the ceiling. I WISH they were to the ceiling. But I refaced, so didn't get much choice.

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen pictures in kitchen album

I only have 7 1/2' ceilings and decided not to go with all cabs to the ceiling. I prefer the look of at least some dropped cabinets, and have no problem sticking the vaccum with brush attachment up there occassionally when needed. I do not have a large kitchen and personally think it does make the kitchen look smaller and more closed in. I could use the extra storage, however. Staggered height cabinets also make an uneven ceiling look less noticable, common in older homes.

Sue

We have an 8' high ceiling, and our upper cabinets are 39". We still haven't put up crown molding, but are thankful we didn't get our original plan of 42" high cabinets, forgetting that the hardwood raised everything by 3/4", and with a light rail, we still wanted lots of clearance between cabinet and counter.

But, it's amazing how much bigger our kitchen appears, we removed a 12" soffit, so we didn't have dust issues, but are looking forward to the extra storage space. I don't think it closes things in at all, and we went from white doors to a medium brown, so you would think it might make things more 'claustrophobic'. Note- though- our uppers only came with two shelves, ridiculous when they are so high, so check on that if you decide to go with taller cabs.

Pupwhipped, you say you need the storage, so this probably isn't an option, but tossing it into the idea pool anyway--lose the upper cabinets altogether, or at least a wall or two's worth. Find another place to put some floor to ceilling storage to replace them. It'd make the space feel wonderfully spacious to work in comparatively and also give you room to show off a convention's worth of Krispy Kreme hats.

My last kitchen we had the cabinets built on site. We took them to the ceiling for storage and I LOVED how they turned out:

In my current kitchen, we kept the existing cabinets and merely tweaked a few to get a custom look, taking some parts to the ceiling and leaving the remaining cabinets as they were. I also love how these look. Here are before and afters of our current kitchen:

{{!gwi}}

We have/had 8ft ceilings in both houses, btw.

We have an 8' ceiling and 42" uppers. There's plenty of room (18") between them and the countertop and I love the look and the storage. The guy we bought the cabinets from insisted that we wouldn't have room to put up crown molding, but our GC was having none of that. He installed bed molding, which I had never heard of. It's narrower than regular crown molding, but looks very nice, gives a finished look to the cabinets, and covers the varying gap between them and the ceiling. I haven't painted it yet, but the GC added a narrow strip of molding under the bed molding on the parts of the kitchen and breakfast room where there aren't any cabinets to give it a little more substance there. Here are pics. You can see that there's plenty of room for the large bread machine.

I guess it's personal choice but I think it actually makes a room look bigger to go up to the ceiling! Here are some choices you should have:

1. Use 30" uppers with crown molding (lots of open space above)
2. Use 36" uppers; fill with 2pc crown molding (6" high)
3. Use 39" uppers; fill with one or two pc. crown molding (3" high) A 2 pc. molding is preferred due to unlevel ceilings and floors...gives more wiggle room
4. Go custom and use whatever height uppers and crown you wish.

I'm not a big fan of 42" uppers all the way to the ceiling, unless it's in a modern/contemporary designed kitchen (ie. slab doors). But even then, you need a shadow line or small molding at the top, usually.

Honestly though, if your cabinet (maker?) or designer couldn't help you with these simple options, you might start looking at other cabinet people.

Like Catbird, we used 42" cabs all the way to the ceiling w/ a narrow crown. LOVE the look! Our kitchen is only 10x10 and doesn't feel or look closed in. In fact it opens the room UP because your eye doesn't stop at a shorter cab height. The couple of inches of counter to cab height isn't a problem for me as I am short & the lower uppers help.

There are some houses around us w/ the same footprint as ours that redid their kitchens w/ shorter cabs. I hate them & a couple of the owners also hate them & wish they had done as we did. Short cabs make a small room look/feel stumpy. JMHO!

Oh dear, I posted this topic awhile back and now just revisited it. I've never had cabinets all the way to the ceiling and have liked the look...cause I like to display all kinds of cr*p on the top shelf. Thought I might need cabs to the ceiling with this house as ceilings are only 8ft and I need all the storage I can get. As I looked at some of the pics that you all kindly shared, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. What I don't like about cabs to the top is that they can look bigger then the cabs below and that just throws it all off to me. Anyone else feel that way? Cabs on top should be shorter then cabs on bottom?

Nope. I love em. You could have a glass insert for the top portion with cab lights (give you the display area you're looking for and open it up a bit without giving you a dust collecting spot).

Oh dear, I hope not. I have 10 ft ceilings and went to the ceiling. I have something like 58 inches of cabinets plus crown. I'm very comfortable with it. We took our initial layout to one designer who said she thought it might close up the kitchen, but between the tall cabinets and the other changes we made (lost a drop-down light box and took out a corner pantry), the kitchen feels a lot larger.

Puppwhipped

Use 39" cabinets and then crown molding to close it up. That way you can leave the cabinet just off the ceiling and they can be level and then you can make up for any differance in the ceiling being off with the molding. Tony M

I have 8 ft. ceilings and I staggered mine. I was nervous about doing it with 8 ft. ceilings, but after seeing some pics on this forum I went for it! The cabinets over the fridge, the cooktop and the oven go to the ceiling and the regular cabinet stop at about 8 inches from the ceiling. I have small crown at the top of those boxes and large crown all the way around the kitchen so that it is on top of the tall cabinets and on the wall above the just cabinets. I also used glass fronts in two of the four regular cabinets. The overall effect in my opinion is more open and larger looking. I considered the space issue, but it's not very convenient space and I had plenty in my new pantry/laundry area for things I don't use often.