Soffit Height, VS Cabinet Height

13 years ago

I know this has been debated in here a lot but want to see if people with 10 foot ceilings could share pics of their kitchens. I am building a new house which they are about done with the framing stage.

I want the cabinets to have the flush look against a soffit so there is not space above them, I know some people do a small upper cabinet instead of doing a soffit. But assuming I dont want the small upper cabinet, I was thinking since ceilings are 10 feet, soffit drops down 12 inches, then in center of kitchen would do coffer with like 10 inch beams abutting soffit. Any ideas or pictures would be great.

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Comments (5)

User
13 years ago
So you did a teardown of the old house and built new rather than try to work within the limitations of the existing footprint?

Soffits are considered a dated look and most talk around here is how to eliminate them, not how to create them. You might find 1 in 1000 people who actually like theirs. You might keep that in mind for resale down the road as that's a pretty good representation of how the population as a whole feels about soffits.

With 10' ceilings, you will have to do a 24" soffit, not a 12" one. Bottom alignment of cabinets is at 54" above the floor, which leaves 66" of space. Subtract out the tallest single cabinets that most cabinet makers are willing to warrant (42") and that leaves 24" for the soffit.

Now, you could do stacked cabinets and a soffit, which would look silly. Stacked cabinets with crown molding to the ceiling would look MUCH better than two feet of soffit. Even 2' of open space would look better than a 2' soffit.
pors996
Original Author
13 years ago
Yes I did end up tearing down the house, I mentioned in another post that I had actually should have done it from the beginning. I already had the new foundation so I did leave the old foundation.

I dont like soffits, but I like when the molding is flush with the ceiling and am not crazy about the small upper cabinet.
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sombreuil_mongrel
13 years ago
Hi,
My ceilings are 9' 9",and I built custom wood soffits and crown to fill the space above the 42" cabinets.

The cost of that much more cabinetry was prohibitive, the soffits were built in about a week of spare time. Also gave much-needed space for the vent duct, some plumbing and wiring runs. I fireblocked everything in there, a step most DIY-ers miss.
Casey
joyce_6333
13 years ago
I don't believe all soffits are ugly. I think they can be beautiful if done with the right molding. I think trying to hide them often makes them stand out more. We've built 3 custom homes and have had cabinets to the ceiling with the small upper cabinets, and have had soffits. I've liked both. I've never had cabinets that are open at the top because I don't want to have "stuff" up there, nor do I want to clean it.

I like your idea of a coffered ceiling. Check out Houzz.com. Lots of wonderful inspirational pics.

Here is a link that might be useful: [Houzz pic of kitchen with 10' coffered ceiling[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/architectural-kitchen-traditional-kitchen-boston-phvw-vp~693684)
sarmay
13 years ago
Our new (old) house has soffits, and I am planning to keep them. Our soffits house a skylight, ducts, electrical and plumbing lines. Since we have a flat roof, there isn't anywhere else for that stuff to go, so the soffits are going to stay.

That said, if I were building new, I would not add soffits where there were none already. I would carry the cabinets to the ceiling instead.