Glad you asked this --- I was wondering the same thing. We will have a vaulted ceiling with beams and I thought it might look good to light them up just a little.

Hope you get some responses and pictures!

I put some rope lighting above the cabs. If I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't bother and just save the $. It's nice but honestly, not all that noticeable.

And yes, it's just rope lighting plugged into the outlets up there. I have 8' ceilings. Now, if I had 10' or higher ceilings, it might be cool to have spot lights set up to accentuate some cool decorative items sitting atop the cabs.

I'm not saying I regret it, just that in the end, the result wasn't as spectacular as I'd thought it would be. I don't think I even have a picture of it in my FKB album but if you want me to take a picture and post it I'll be happy to. Just email me through gardenweb so I'll remember to do it tonight.

My mom has vaulted ceiling in her kitchen and did the rope lighting. I agree with lowspark- it is nice, but not that noticeable. I don't think she would do it again, as they don't really turn them on that often.

I don't have them, but a friend of mine does. She has a coved ceiling, and thought the above-cabinet lighting would be necessary. She told me she never turns it on, and it was a waste of money and time. For mood lighting, she dims her undercabinet lights.

Mwrede - I just have a question, cause I didn't understand something in your OP. You said you have 9" ceilings, and 12" cabinets, and a foot between your cabinets and ceiling? I do not understand the reference to 12" cabinets. Can you explain?

BTW, I have 9' ceilings, and wanted no space between my cabinets and ceiling, so I have 42" cabinets, and a stack of 12" cabinets above the 42" ones. When I saw your reference to 12" cabinets, I thought that was what you meant too, but it can't be, cause you said you have a foot of space to your ceiling.

Thank you all for the responses.
I've thought about the rope lighting but I wanted to see if there were other choices. It only costs $300 to add 6 outlets up there including the wiring and a switch for all of them so I think we might go ahead and do it.

akchicago sorry I wasn't clear I meant we'll have the standard 12" deep uppers but also two 24" deep uppers so I was wondering whether it would look ok to install up-lights in the back of all of them. They are all 40.5" tall (or 94.5" overall plus crown) and our ceiling height is 108". The custom hood will be the only thing that goes all the way to the ceiling.

We have rope lighting too but will probably upgrade to something else when we have more money. (My DH does community theater lighting design on the side and has more plans but we went basic now) This summer we used them a lot. When we eat on the patio we dimmed down the kitchen lights and add the above cab lighting. We have a home automation system so for us it's just 1 button and easy to do. When we are eating in the DR we use the dimmed kitchen light mode too.