What is the distance between the top of the cabinets & the ceiling? You could do some intricate crown moulding or a ceiling scribe. If there is a lot of space, cabinets with glass doors & lights make a nice area to display fine china.

What does your architect have designed. Opposed to just leaving that space alone? I imagine you have 36" counter height, then another 18" between countertop and bottom of wall cabinets. I'll throw in 42" uppers. Were @ 8' with a remainder of 4'. Is that the area your concerned about? What is the style or theme of the kitchen / home?

Lordy, that's way up there. I need a ladder to comfortably reach the top shelf of an eight foot cabinet. I'd need an 8' ladder to get to the top of a twelve foot tall space. So...there's no use in putting cabinets up to the ceiling unless you install a rolling library ladder to access the uppers. The space is pretty much useless. Take a look at this kitchen with 9' ceilings and a special cabinet slot in the broom cabinet for the step ladder.

My ceilings are 11-1/2 feet. My kitchen cabinets go to 7 feet (fairly standard) and I've filled in the remaining 4-1/2 feet with decorative items (see photo). Cabinets were installed before I purchased so I didn't really have a choice. While I really would love more cabinet space, I agree with earlier post that it probably would have been impractical to reach. I also have a tray ceiling in the other part of the room. Hope this helps.

Oh, thank you all! I think maybe a mix of all... Coffered ceiling, decorative items, and maybe some sort of trimming on the top of the cabinets to add height...

Also, Yarbro, I think the cabinet hight is 42 inches everything else standard like you said. Yes, the difference between the ceiling and top of cabinets is what I am worried about. The builder said something about staggering the cabinets.

Here's a kitchen where it looks like they went all the way to the ceiling.

http://houzz.com/photos/2676445