If the cabinets are not extending into the dining room space you could keep the header there leaving the dining room ceiling intact or make the opening a large doorway with a small bit of wall at the right.

@palimpsest, thanks for your response! The cabinets could extend into the dining room on one side, but definitely not the other because that's where the door to the basement is.

Here's a picture from the kitchen side of the wall:

You should be able to find crown molding to match the existing.

I don't know if I would keep it intact if the cabinets extend beyond it. It *might be easier to replace all the molding if you can't find a match however you might be surprised, many moldings are still made. I lived in a house from 1840 and they still make one of the trim profiles. Yours looks pretty common, it's a classic shape.

We haven't finalized the layout of the kitchen yet. We don't need to extend the cabinets into the dining room. And it would only be possible on one side anyway. I think I would prefer to remove the wall completely but I'm worried about the transition. Also, we're planning a contemporary kitchen (with no molding above the cabinets) so I'm thinking that keeping the header might help separate the spaces somehow.

I find most kitchen-dining room combinations awkward and not very well done, and your issue is one of the reasons why it's often not pulled off successfully.

The best openings I've seen was where there is still a wall between the two rooms but with a very large open doorway. Sometimes it even has a kitchen peninsula incorporated. And that is what I did with my renovation with the kitchen and adjoining dining room.

You don't need to take the whole wall down. Leave just enough around the sides and ceiling to give the impression there's still a wall. No need to take down the ceiling crown molding. Problem solved.

Thank you, @Thomas! That makes a lot of sense. We thought about a peninsula but I'm pretty sure we're going with a breakfast counter on the other end, where there's a window and a skylight.

If the DR is a separate space I would remove the crown so that that space and the kitchen have no crown.

Roughly, a large doorway would look like this:

@Patricia Colwell Consulting, I'll look into that option for sure. The dining room connects to a small foyer which then connects to the living room. I need to have a better look next time I go (we just bought the house and haven't moved in yet). Thank you!

@palimpsest, amazing, thank you so much!! This is so helpful. If you don't mind, can I ask you a few questions? Do you think the walls need to be symmetrical? There's only a few inches of wall on one side (the one close to the door to the basement). Should we do the other side the same width? Or should the other wall have the depth of the cabinets? Not sure if I'm being clear. Thanks again!

@Patricia Colwell Consulting and @palimpsest, here's a picture of the other end of the DR. It's separated by this archway, so I'm thinking it's possible to remove the crown in the DR and leave it in the foyer and LR. Do you agree? I'd really appreciate your input. I'm also thinking that, if we go the other route (that is, leave part of the wall between the DR and the kitchen, we need to do an archway to match the one on the opposite side, instead of a rectangular doorway. BTW, we're pretty sure we're removing the chair rail in the DR. We don't mind it per se, but do not want to deal with different paint colors. Thank you both in advance!

I think if I were leaving an archway no matter how big, I would leave the dining, entry, LR crown intact but not put it in the kitchen.

@palimpsest, but would you do an archway between the kitchen and the DR or a rectangular doorway? We're definitely not putting crown in the kitchen. Based on the suggestions here, we're debating between two options: 1) partially removing the wall between the kitchen and the DR and doing a doorway (archway or rectangular); or 2) removing the crown in the DR and removing the wall between the kitchen and the DR completely. Thank you!!

I don't really have an opinion on whether you do an archway or a rectangular opening. Rooms will often have both, it is not incorrect. I would say that it would be harder to get someone to build a large three-centered arch to match the one you have, than it would be to build a rectangular opening. It might be a little easier to get someone to properly build a psuedo three-centered arch which would be flat on the top with a radius that matched your other arch at the ends.

I would prefer the arched opening rather than just removing the entire wall. That provides some articulation of the two spaces rather than a big open space which, in my opinion, can be problematic, unless you turn the entire space into "kitchen with an eating area" --you wouldn't want to end up with something that still looked like two separate rooms, just with the wall missing where bits and pieces of the two bleed together in the middle. And I feel like you see this last occurrence an awful lot.

The arch forms

@palimpsest thank you!