No. The top alignment height of 90” needs 36”H cabinets to match.

I needed to accommodate my husband's desire for a 34.3 cu. ft. Samsung Chef Collection 4-door fridge (36" deep)... quite the challenge in our small kitchen with a 96" ceiling height. So, 96" less lower cabinet height 36" less 18" from top of counter to bottom of upper cabinet (check your local building code) leaves you with 42" to play with including any architectural elements. If you use a lighting valence you'll need to take that measurement away from the 42". I used LED strip lighting that I had scored into bottom of upper cabinet so I didn't need to take that measurement into consideration. Photos may help explain what I did:

I understand what the standard matches are which is why I am asking the question. What I'm trying to figure out is whether this can still work - what if any work around there may be.

One thing I considered is that the blue cabinets below on the other wall are all 36" so if we replace just the upper next to the fridge and the trim above the fridge/freezer then the whole back row would be uniform...

I wonder? Would it be possible to replace the two top doors on the pantry with taller doors?

You would probably need to order blank doors (that is, w/o hinge borings) and bore them on site.

Or take a two piece stacked cabinet approach for the pantry.

Or raise the pantry on a box, and put in a toekick drawer? Can you match a new drawer front to the existing cabinets?

Hmm. Already raised the standard 4”. Cabinet is 86” or so without the toe kick. So another “6 would be a 10” toe kick not sure how that would look. Does it look that bad if the square design doesn’t match up on top and there is just some additional filler? Because in the rendering it just doesn’t look that terrible.

Seems like a bunch of people have used 42” uppers with thin scribe molding or 16” between counter and uppers.

We are repurposing some old cabinets.

We would not hang them at 90”. We will hang them at 95” or 96” and possibly hand crown partially over inset top or thin molding.

You can’t have 6” of difference in crown molding on one cabinet make up the 6” difference in cabinet height alignment. This idea should be dead in the water. Use them in the garage for storage. But do the right thing in the kitchen.

Do you have a photo of the actual cabinet?

Two pantries pictured on far left in first pic. And previously installed in second pic.

What if we ordered a cabinet for the other side of the fridge also 90” and a new piece for on top of the fridge/freezer. Then the back wall would all be 36” across the entire room. Would that be ok if the cabinets by the sink are then 42”?

I’m not sure why that would be the case. If these tall cabinets are 20 feet away on the opposite side of the room?