If I were you I'd go to the ceiling too. Not only does it give you maximum useful storage, but it also visually will make your ceiling appear taller. If you want, you can make the door front of the top shelf glass, light those top shelves, and make them for display as well as decorative room lighting. It cuts down on practical storage by making the top shelves decorative instead of practical, but it looks so nice.

What are standard heights of upper cabinets?

Usually standard height cabinets are 8 feet or 96 inches. You're sure the ceiling height is only a little over 6& 1/2 feet tall? That is low!! I think if that is the case I would bring too cabinets all the way down to the bottom ones but not as deep as the bottom. You could do the bottom ones 26 inches it so deep and then do top ones 12 inches deep. At the bottom of the top ones you could have drawers for bowls, saucers and that sort of thing. Take one corner and build in a caddy corner appliance garage for the coffee machine, toaster, can opener, etc. just do this on the wall the window is on, on both sides.

Remove the cabinets over the window and put in a larger window too. That would make the ceiling height look taller.

That should be top cabinets not too!! Sorry

Crowinghen, can you take pictures of the other two walls and post them too?

SORRY 89 inches on the ceiling!

We are changing out the whole layout of the kitchen, the only thing that won't change is the flooring ( it's going to be extended into the living room) We are taking out a wall between the kitchen and living room so I can have room for a functioning dining table.

The wall that is only cabinets ( to the right of the table) will be coming down. Here's a picture of the living room. It's hard to describe , but this picture is taken from the kitchen doorway with the wall of cabinets to the left . Directly behind the blue chair is an awkward sized area with a door to the porch that is facing the same way as this picture.

Your ceiling height is 7' 5", not 6' 6", which is still very low. I'd not use upper cabinets at all. Build a pantry somewhere and use open shelves, especially around the window.

I wpuld raise the cabinets to be 20” from the counter and go with 30” tall cabinets with a 3 “ trim if you are going true custom then the cabinets can be made any height

I too would use a 33" high wall cabinet and a small trim to the ceiling with an 89" ceiling height. Going to the ceiling will make the room appear taller. I also like the suggestion of removing the cabinets above the window and putting in a taller window if possible. I think this would really help open up the space.

Thanks everyone! All of the windows will be changed in size and location. The window in front of the table faces the water, that is where the sink and large window will be.

Crowinghen,

Here are a few pictures of the cabinets going to the counter top like I suggested on some of your cabinets. You wouldn't want to do all of them this way because it cuts down on your counter space. But in a smaller kitchen when you need storage and you have ways of getting counter room on other walls it works well and looks very nice, making the ceiling appear taller.

I was going to suggest measuring your current upper cabinets, as they already appear to go basically to the ceiling. but it seems that several people have already done the math -- (noncustom) cabinets are generally available in 3-inch increments of height from 24" to 42", so you should be able to get this just right.

The current cabinets extend a little too low for my liking- can't open the coffee maker up without pulling it out. But that's a good idea ti just measure! Thanks all!

Crowinghen, since you are redoing your entire kitchen this may be something you might be interested in. It's a built in coffee maker. You run a water line to it to fill it and you don't have to do anything but turn it on and put the filter and coffee in. I have one in my kitchen and I love it!!!

One of my contractors is installing wall cabinets 20 in above the countertop due to the Keurig coffee makers. That cabinet height would make it difficult for me to reach the 2nd shelf.