I have a few questions for you. Are you doing an entire kitchen reno? Are you installing base cabinets as well? By Fur Down, do you mean soffit, i.e. about 12" or more of wall from the top of cabinets to the ceiling, or do you mean something else by Fur Down? What is the distance between your countertops and upper cabinets?

Anyway, we brought our base cabinets out by 3" from the wall, which meant that our countertops are 27", not the standard 24" deep. We also made our upper cabinets 15" deep. The best decision ever for both uppers and base cabinets! Love the deep counters, and love that the uppers can hold dishes easily. With the standard 12" upper cabinets, often larger dishes can't fit. So if you are also installing base cabinets, I would recommend pulling them out from the wall by 3", having a deeper countertop, and you will have no problem whatsoever, and all the advantages, of deeper upper cabinets.

I asked about the distance between your countertop and upper cabinets, because you asked about interfering with workspace and being dark. The distance should be about 18" to avoid being cramped.

We got rid of our soffit, and took our cabinets up to our 8' ceiling - another wonderful decision, because it provides much more storage space in our small kitchen, makes our kitchen appear larger, and makes the ceiling appear higher. We did have some electrical conduit behind the soffit, but we were able to run the conduit up against the ceiling, and hide it behind the cabinet molding. If by Fur Down you are just talking about a narrow strip, can you remove it entirely? If not, my recommendations in my first paragraph still stand.

Ours are about 14" and there are no problems with interfering with food prep. We don't even have undercabinet lights on that run and have no issues with the counter being too dark, either. We have inset cabinets on that wall, so the extra depth was essential to make sure our plates would fit. (They were actually sized to our plates rather than to an inch size---we just gave the plate dimensions to our cabinetmaker and said "this has to fit!")

If you can make the counter below deeper, that's even better, but we didn't have space to do this, so our counter is just 25" deep and it's fine.

Half our upper cabinets are 15" deep over standard depth counters (i.e., 25.5"...24" cabinet + 1.5" counter overhang). We have no problems with them getting in the way of food prep. We have under-cabinet lighting, so I cannot say if they would be "darker"...I doubt they would be, though. (Regardless of their depth, I recommend under-cabinet lights.)

My uppers are 15" deep and are over 30" deep counters. I also had them raised up really high as I didn't want any interference with the KA or other appliances. I think they are 22-24" above, I can't remember off hand. Here is a pic.

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fur down = soffit = bulkhead, depending on your location I guess. Here, I've always heard it called fur down.

Not building new cabinets, base cabinets 24" stay in place. Just moving the uppers. 18" between uppers and lowers.

Ours are 13". That single inch made a big difference as far as storage and has no negative impact on anything else.

Caroline, you must need a ladder to access most of those shelves. ;)

We kept our soffits aka furr down aka bulkhead. We attempted to install standard uppers that we got as part of a kitchen display when we realized, uh oh, the soffit is 14" not 12". A year after our demo, we had forgotten what it looked like. Anyway, we quickly realized that the cabs would look better if they matched the soffit, so DH built new uppers to fit. I'm extremely happy. I have no issues with bumping. Of course, I'm vertically challenged, so it's never going to be a concern. Anyway, I think the taller you are, the longer your arms, so a taller person wouldn't likely be standing belly up to the lowers anyway so you'll never get close enough to worry about bumping.

Well, that's my theory. I'm only 5'2".

Go 14, you won't regret it.

I'm 5'2" also Kathec. But my dh is 6'3". I think I'm going to do it. I'm not sure what I'll do on the sides, probably have to put a panel there, but I think that will look ok too.

@trailrunner- Beautiful cabinets. What color are they?

My uppers are 14" deep over the std 24" base cabs with 18" between countertop and uppers. Those two inches made a big difference to me and you don't notice it being 2" closer to the counter edge.

I have under cab lights plus cans for general lighting. We took the soffit/bulkhead down and made the cabs 39" plus crown. Rarely used items go on the top shelf since it takes a two-step stool for me to reach them, but at least the items aren't taking up valuable reachable space.

As I mentioned above, we took the soffit down. We really needed every inch of storage we could find; removing the soffit and taking the cabs up to the ceiling was a wonderful solution. Aesthetically it was an enormous improvement too. Made the kitchen look much bigger, almost like magic. To the OP/Marti8a - have you thought about removing the soffit/fur down?

Just a P.S. about us vertically-challenged people (5'3" here) and tall upper cabinets. For me, I can't reach anything above the second shelf regardless, so I will need a stepstool whether we had cabinets up to the ceiling, or had shorter cabinets. Either way I need a stepstool, so I was happy to get the taller cabs.

On one wall, we have 15" uppers over 24 3/4" cabs. We did this to accommodate the microwave shelf. We have undercabinet lighting, and I think it will be just fine.

alwaysfixin (great name by the way), since I'm reusing the old cabinets, I don't want to take it down. I don't like the empty space over cabinets and I don't really need more cabinets and couldn't get doors that match anyway.

As alwaysfixin says...can't reach anything past 2nd shelf anyway, I am 5'2" ,,,,and I LOVE the high cabs ! I have a 3 step folding stool that I inherited from my MIL. I use it infrequently as most of what I use is on the1st 2 shelves or on the open ones by the sink. It has worked for 6 yrs. I hope your decision works as well for you. c

I have 15" wall cabinets over 26" base cabinets. The extra depth is great.

Do you have a wall hood? We had problems aligning it. If it is a standard depth hood at top you need to pull it out. Or do something else. Our sticks out probably more than we had anticipated ie it hits my husbands head at times.

My plan is to not have any uppers on the side with the stove top so the hood shouldn't be a problem. Not sure how I'm going to deal with it though.

We have a tiny California kitchen that lives like a large kitchen. How? With custom wall frameless cabinets (European) 14" deep, standard cabinets all the way to the 8' ceiling. The difference in cost from, 12" depth cabinets was about $300. Well worth it. I can fit huge turkey platters flat on the shelves. The base cabinets we kept standard depth and they worked well. Used drawers in the base cabinets on both sides of the range for pots and pans. Tons of storage. It lives larger than my girlfriend's new house with a large center island. She wishes her kitchen had my storage and my prep areas. I'm a happy camper.