If you're going to be in the home for years, no reason not to go with 38" counters if that's what works for you. If you're selling in the near future, it might be best to stick with standard height counters. With all due respect to fori, I would notice and, as a shortie, a home with 38" high kitchen counters would be a no-go for me. You can always use cutting boards, etc, to increase counter height but you can't easily reduce its height. If you go with the standard distance between counter and upper cabs, your upper cabs will also be higher on the wall. Make sure you have enough ceiling height to go with standard height upper cabs.

Another alternative - raise just a portion of your counters to 38", not all of them. There are quite a few GWers who have multiple height counters and it works very well for them.

Hi Caffeinequeen,

I had a thread like that but it's title is about prep sinks...it just evolved into multiple counter heights. I'll link it below. It has a picture of a raised island containing a raised dishwasher. (I have back problems). Hope this is the one you mean. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: 2-level counters

There's also this one in answer to my question about multi-level counters. It has a really nice picture...this may be what you mean.

Here is a link that might be useful: Multi-level counters

Our counters are 38". I fought it hard, but I live in a house full of giants (I'm the shortest by far at 5'7"), and we are a family of cooks, so I got overruled.

Our kitchen was a DIY remodel, with all IKEA cabinets, so raising the height of the counters wasn't hard at all. The cabinets come with leveling feet that spin up or down, so we just spun them up to the height we wanted.

We do have a range in the perimeter cabinet run, but that also has feet that spin up and down, so it was an easy matter to raise it to the height of the countertops. The added height does make the range sit pretty high off the floor, but no one really notices it, and the extra height makes it a breeze to sweep and mop under there.

We had planned on custom cutting our baseboards anyway (because I wanted feet, we weren't going to use the standard ones that come with the cabinets), so nothing really changed with that-- we just cut them a couple inches taller.

Our kitchen has been mostly done for about 6 months, and honestly, I don't even notice the taller counters. The giants, however, swear they're wonderful!

Here's a photo of the range with the legs spun up, and the cabinets with the taller baseboards:

Okay, I think we're sold on the 38 inch counters. Our glass-top slide in range specifies a maximum counter height of 36 7/8 inches, so we are going to build a 2-inch platform or frame for the legs to sit on. The other consideration is the dishwasher,which we plan to leave on the floor with a filler strip at the top that matches the cabinets. Any reason why either of these wouldn't work?

I bought a house a year and a half ago that has 38" tall counters. The previous owners were taller, and they were the ones that updated the kitchen. I'm 5'8" and my girlfriend is 5'2". We certainly don't like the height of the counters, and if I can some day justify the cost of a kitchen remodel, we will be bringing the counters back to 36" or maybe 36.5". One issue we have is that our electric slide in range is sitting on 2x4 boards to give it enough height to match the counters. These boards are very visible and looks very ghetto. Also there is a strip of wood under the wash machine that you wouldn't normally have that looks odd, to bring that up to the right height. Appliances aren't made for 38" high counters, they don't even make optional parts for this situation. It's best to design your kitchen to accommodate the standard world of appliances, and to think about your future buyer's needs. Your house is more valuable if it suits the needs of the many rather than the few.

@clan0013 You can remove or shorten the toekick area sometimes to bring down the height. Sometimes that is even how the height was raised, by putting larger toekicks in. Also look into a rolling cart or central island that is a lower height so the shorter one can use that area primarily.

Value is relative to the user. If someone will be in the home a long time and experiences back strain with shorter counters, then the taller counters make sense for tall users, despite the modifications for appliances. At 5'8", if you do any of the cooking or especially dish washing, I think you might be surprised how much of a different feel 36" counters will give you.

My husband and I are 5'11" and 5'7" respectively, and we experimented for months and months with different counter heights before deciding on 38" 3/16" finished height for our kitchen renovation. Having a shorter area for dough rolling and other tasks would be ideal in a larger space, but our kitchen is small, our workstation sink is very deep giving us a variety of working levels within the kitchen, and we do have a workspace outside the kitchen that is much lower if needed. After all our experimenting with elevated surfaces, we know that height will be perfect for us for most tasks, and we have no relocation plans for the life of this kitchen. It's not unheard of for people to customize working countertops or sections of counter up to 40" high for users over 6 feet tall.

One solution to your range problem is to buy a drop-in range that actually hangs on the countertop rather than sitting on the floor.

Another is the build a platform for the range to set on. It does not have to be fancy. A plywood box will work. Make it just large enough for the range's legs to rest securely, but not so large that it peaks out from under the range. Trim the edge with the same toe-kick trim you use under the cabinets.

We have done at least 50 of these over the years, but I never thought to take a photo of one, so I have nothing to show you. Too bad because it sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

We have built several variations. One was a roll-out platform on appliance rollers so the lady of the house could easily move the range out and in to clean. The most complicated part of this project was finding a rated gas hose long enough so she did not have to disconnect the range every time..

Another variation was a toe-kick drawer built into the platform (which I think was 4" high in a handicap accessible kitchen -- may have even been six inches). Using a touch latch, a tap popped the drawer open and it could be easily closed with a little foot pressure. Great place to store cookie sheets, but in this case we used it to store a fold-up step stool or reaching stuff in high wall cabinets built under a 10' ceiling.

Before you install your cabinets, don't forget to lay down a generous amount of borax to discourage creepy-crawlies. An old Indian trick that I learned from an Old Indian.

@StarCraft Custom Builders Thanks for the advice. We do plan to have a platform built with rollers for the stove mainly just to get it in if nothing else. I hadn't thought about the long gas hose. We'll start looking for one, and thanks for that tip. The toe kick drawer is also one we had considered but will probably cross off due to cost. We aren't planning to raise the dishwasher, though that would be the more elegant solution. We'll just have trim across the top to fill the gap.