We have 9'+ ceilings and didn't want the cabinets to go all the way up. We put in inexpensive rope lights from HD. They work great and give us the extra ambient light we wanted. Our electrician did put in outlets just above the cabinets to plug them in.

Can you show us a pic bostonpam? I am deciding whether or not to go to the 9' ceilings, an if I don't, I will be in the same boat as kay

Similar situation here. Had soffits, got rid of them. I do have about 12" between cabs & (8') ceilings on one side of the kitchen (other side, the cabs go all the way to the ceiling). I did rope lights above and have some display items sitting up there too.

Essentially it's just a matter of having the electrician put in some outlets and you can plug in whatever you want.

To be honest, it's nice but... well, really, not that noticeable. I don't know specifically what it cost me because it was just part of the whole electrical package, but I suspect, not that much really. After all, it's just a couple of outlets. Plus the cost of the rope lighting.

We just installed uplights over our cabinets, in a 6" space. lowspark is right, it doesn't *do* anything. It doesn't really light the kitchen, when the task light recessed cans are on, you can hardly tell when you flip the switch. But it's lovely on its own, a warm glow for drinking cozy evening drinks by (don't choose cool-white LEDs for this).

We used this $15 16-foot roll of LEDs, and a $20 power brick. We installed a switch next to the sink that controls an outlet that's placed up in the top shelf of one of the cabinets. Since we're DIYing, total cost was $50.

You can put real lights in there, and a light colored ceiling, and have indirect lighting for the whole room. Very easy on the eyes and minimal shadows.

Plllog, I'm not sure 7 inches is enough for indirect lighting to be more than a decorative effect. Fluorescents would take up at least a couple inches of that space. You can probably get flatter profile LEDs, but I think there's just not enough room for the light to spread (think holding a flashlight 6 inches from the wall rather than 2 ft from the wall). If she had even a foot to work with, I'd agree.

So Kay, what I am saying is that I am confident you can get a decorative effect with uplighting, but I'm not sure it will do much to create ambient lighting, even if you chose brighter lamps.

I agree with cawaps. The uplighting is not for task lighting. We use up-lighting when the undercab lights are dimmed and little else light in the room. It's a nice effect and I get compliments all the time. My DH does lighting design for community theater on the side so lighting was important to him. We were worried that the cheap HD rope lights would not be bright enough even for our requirements. It was fine. Maybe in the future we may change it out but it works great. I don't have pictures with the lighting on (in fact I don't have any finished kitchen pictures) but here are our cabs (and unpainted walls..)

Thanks! I never thought about rope lighting, but that seems like a good choice... and I like the price.

Once again. GW to the rescue:-)

Okay, prompted by Cawaps, I just measured. My main kitchen lighting is indirect fluorescent, and it's 9" from the top of the housing to the ceiling. The fixtures are only about an inch tall--they're the thin tubes, not the fat commercial lighting ones. That's still a few inches more than Kay's 7", and that might be all the difference for proper spreading.

The way things are going, we will probably go with ropes as the most inexpensive possibility, but it's good to know the small flourescents might work. It's really not for actual light, more to say: Yes, we know, there's a space up there:-)

Thanks!