Do transoms.

Doors that are 8 feet high are good. You really don't want any taller doors.

You can add transoms in certain areas. However, keep in mind that if you add crown molding at the ceiling and if the door trim is wide, than you have less of a gap between the top of the doors and the ceiling. Also, if you use transoms above the doors they need to be proportioned correctly as well. You might have your designer draw up interior elevations with transoms and also with the molding and trim....With drawings you will be able to decide which is the best direction....

HA! We used to do the same thing with our couches, then our dog got too old to climb up :( And no, your house doesn't look dated at all - quite lovely.

aphil02 The 8' doorways are nice, human scale IMO. We may love tall ceilings (we're doing one room with a tall cathedral) but let's face it, they have nothing to do do with the human form, it's just dead air up there so it seems important (again, IMO) to make sure other things like doorways relate to human scale.

I wouldn't go higher than 8'. As DLM mentioned any higher and you lose the human scale.

Put the moldings around the openings, and one other thing you can do to bring the feel of the room down is to add picture molding at the 8' mark too. That will help bring the room down to human scale too.

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You might explore options that bring down the 11 foot ceiling to the 10' range. Like coffers or beams. That along with the uniform 8' door height can help to unify the space.

Thanks for these comments - some good things to think about.
Several of you have mentioned visually lowering the ceiling or doing
other things that make the rooms more aligned with a human scale rather
than adding transoms. I guess this would make the rooms seem more
comfortable? I suppose I thought I had hit the jackpot when we
discovered three extra feet of ceiling space during demo! But most of
the comments make me think I should do things to reduce the visual
height.

I really love this row house ( Montague Terrace and Montague Terrace
) and somewhat aspire for ours to resemble it. Of course, it has even
higher ceilings than ours, but we'll have a similar paneled opening
between the living and dining rooms that will be about 9'6" tall. So to
some degree, I suppose that 9'6" opening dictates the scale for the
room.Anyhow, thanks for these responses. I've asked my architect
to try a design with transoms above the doors, which will mean dropping
the crown in the 10' section of the house.

Should you choose to go taller than an 8' door, it will be a custom unit. That adds a lot of cost. So, it would be better to plan on the 8' doors with some of the visual aids that were suggested. I owned a historic home with 12' ceilings and 9' doors and transoms with large crown and case moldings. The previous owner had spent a small fortune on the doors. It's all about the scale.