So there's something in the soffit that can't be moved?

There was a lot of plumbing and venting that was going to be too expensive to move. In hindsight we potentially should have just done it, but it was taking too long to get quotes, etc…so we just moved forward with the soffits there.

Do you have a picture of what's under there without the soffit box? You might be able to do a pipe chase in the back of your wall cabinets so you can still have the visual to the ceiling, but have the plumbing hidden inside the cabinets.

Across the top of the slider and the sink and into the cabinet on the right of the hood, there is plumbing. We cut the cabinets, made the soffits out of 3/4" cabinet material (no 2 x 4 s needed ) and made them as small as possible.

Maybe you can do this?

I really like your setup! Here is what’s under the soffit…we probably could have done something similar without needing the full soffit.

You can still do the same setup IF IF IF your cabinet interior ( behind the face frame ) and the depth of the soffit are the same - approx 11" . Otherwise modify the depth of the wall cabinets 1-2" or pull down the soffit , put the cabinets up and then cover the plumbing.

Now is the time to make these types of changes. It really isn't that big of deal. Your carpenter might be annoyed, but this should have been sorted out before anything was done.

Good luck

Could you change your hood type to be an under the soffit system like this one.

Atherton Oasis · More Info

Atherton Oasis · More Info

You could even disguise the soffit to look like part of an upper cab

Old Mill Park · More Info

You could make the soffit look like it is part of giant hood.

Custom Kitchen Range Hoods · More Info

Thanks Debbi, Boxerpal, and everyone else who commented with advice. Debbie, I think your advice spot on for what we should do in our situation…I’ll just prepare myself for a potentially awkward/frustrating conversation :). Thank you all