Its hard to say without a drawing or picture, but if you are minimizing the soffits, I would align them with whatever is under them in the fridge hutch area.

So, if the fridge and oven cabinets are 24" make it 24" there and whatever the depth of the hutch is match it there.

thanks, palimpest!

I think they look best a little deeper than the cabinetry and I like it when the wall colour wraps around them.

My Mom's kitchen has them flush to the boxes on the sink side and deeper than the uppers on the end:

I had to leave the soffit on one wall where there was piping running through it but was able to remove them on the rest of my kitchen. Well, no one looked inside the soffits until it was time to demolish them... so we had to rework a bit of the cabinet plan so that a narrow pantry would fit under the soffit, and readjust the crown molding plan. At least you've looked first :)

The soffit extends aboout 1.5" beyond the cabinets and is painted the wall color. It looks absolutely fine and actually is a little 'architectural' contrast to the open tops of the cabinets on the other walls.

You can always put trim on top of the cabinets and the sofit. This pathetic sketch is of a plate rail added to the top with other trim and skins to look like fine panels.

{{!gwi}}

Buehl had to keep a small shallow soffit on one of her walls. You really don't even notice them in her beautiful kitchen. I found a thread where she shows the picture. It's a little ways down the thread. There are some other pics of how people have treated their soffits in the thread also.

Here is a link that might be useful: soffit treatment

I have the same problem. Attached are some renderings of what I'm doing:

The cooktop wall will have moulding to finish the cabinets to the ceiling.

I also have another soffit across from the one pictured that will remain. It will be above the fridge, oven, and beverage station.

Right now the soffits are all around the room and hang down 20" in a 9' tall room. Drives me nuts! So, I am completely removing two of them and modifying the two that have to stay.

Both of the ones that have stay will be shorter and less deep than the are today. They will be painted the wall color as I don't have much wall in my kitchen and would like to have a place for a little paint.

Hope that helps.

thanks for the advice-- we'll see how it turns out.

I actually added soffits on opposite sides of my kitchen. The soffits are the same color as the walls which make the cabs stand out nicer. Also the soffits are about 3-5 inches wider than the cabs. Meaning they come out into the kitchen more. We put trim on top of the cabs and since we have box beams we put trim against the soffits so you really don't see too much.

I am not good at posting pics but look under Stiles in the FKB and you might see what I am talking about.

This is what our soffit looks like now that the walls are painted (but no BS yet *sigh*)

OK...you see it b/c you're looking for it. I've had people tell me they didn't notice it until I pointed it out. Maybe they were being kind or maybe they really didn't notice it...we tend to obsess on the things that didn't work out as originally planned (like removing a soffit completely or hiding it completely behind cabinets). BTW...I've stopped pointing it out to people!