You might check the many threads on the Kitchens forum on this exact topic.

I prefer them to go all the way for the simple reason that I'm lazy and I loathe having to get up on a stool to clean the gunky dust off the tops. But you can also fill the gap with a honking amount of crown molding, depending on the style of your kitchen. At that point it may seem preferable to just go to the top with the cabs and get some extra storage out of the $$ expenditure.

i saw some of those other posts, but i really wanted to get examples of cost comparison.. a lot of people say more $$$, but never say how much.. are we talking a couple thousand or like 5 thousand?
that is all i was looking for. any examples like that with kitchen size would be great, thanks

roll80 I am going through the same exact process and have been mulling this over as well. Hopefully someone can enlighten us. My kitchen and dining room are open to the living room and front entry. I have considered doing 9 ft in the kitchen and dining room so I can have the cabinets to the ceiling and then leaving the living room and front entry at 10 feet. I think it will work but not sure if it will look right or feel right.

Aesthetically, kitchen upper cabinets going to the ceiling always appear more attractive, IMO. That said, for a 10' ceiling you will likely have to either: 1) use two upper cabinet lines (for example, a 42" upper with a 24" upper above that, or some similar combination of heights), or 2) custom designed and fabricated upper cabinets). Using a double line of upper cabinets will approximately double the cost of the upper cabinets, won't it?

In evaluating a design option, have you thought through to what extend and how often will you actually use the highest upper line of cabinets? Do you plan to have a ladder handy continuously? Will they simply be decorative and not used? If so, you might save some many by a custom matching fascia in lieu of the upper 24" line of cabinets

If it was me, I'd probably keep the 10' ceiling, but drop a continuous bulkhead to 9' where the upper cabinets will be located and use an appropriate molding to make the cabinets look "built-in" in a thoughtful design solution.

Everything depends on the architectural style of your house and your height (not to mention your proclivity for ladder climbing)!

Good luck on your project!

Thanks virgilcarter. Not sure how the bulkhead would work with our floor plan. It is a open floor plan so I am having trouble visualizing that on one of the walls. However since we are all 6 foot plus in our family having taller cabinets is not an issue. The ladder on the other hand is, I hate heights!

we are doing 42" cabinets with crown molding for our 10 ft. ceilings. I don't personally care for the look of soffits/bulkheads, and for us it would be several thousand to add 24" cabs above our uppers. Some love that look, others think it makes the cabinets feel heavier, more closed in. The space above can make it seem more open. We've had cathedral ceilings in our last two houses and as long as you finish the top with nice crown, the 42" can look fine. We never really got a ton of dust up there either.
Either way will look nice. :-)

We did 9' ceilings in our new build. Upper cabinets are not quite 47.5". We have, what they termed as, furniture based stacked crown. Crown is about 7.5". Extra charge was $1660.

Cost goes up depending on the amount of cabinets, whether or not you want to have glass doors on the upper stack of cabinets, lighting inside...... Adding the glass doors also adds cost as usually the cabinet insides have to be stained the same color as the exterior. You could easily spend $5000+ to $10,000 on the stacked uppers on your size of kitchen.

We did double stacked cabinets up to our 9' ceiling. 36" cabinets with 14" upper stacked and 3" crown. The total length of stacked cabinets was around 17', no glass. It was around $4200 Can. We decided not to do the glass and lights in the stacked uppers as in our last build we had them and never put anything in the upper cabinets and never turned on the lights so was not worth the added cost for us.

This post was edited by xc60 on Wed, Apr 2, 14 at 20:51

Count me in the "feeling closed in" club. We are going to 9' for the few uppers that we have (10' ceilings). In terms of keeping the tops clean, various suggestions in the linked article and comments.

Here is a link that might be useful: Keeping tops of cabinets clean

Cabinet costs are sooo variable. Quality and finish make such a difference in the cost, so whatever someone else paid may or may not be realistic for you. And you're talking about a large quantity.

I think you should come up with your "this is what we really want" plan . . . then talk to the cabinet makers with an open mind and tell them flat-out that you need to see a variety of options and prices. Only then can you really make an informed decision.

Add1/4 to 1/2 again to your kitchen quote depending on how the stacked is configured. If your quote is for 10k without the stack, it could be12.5k to 15k for basic stacked. Start adding in matching interiors with specialty glass with a tall stack and you could double your price. Easily double your price.

We have 9 foot ceiling and we did kind of stacked look with 48" cabinets and 6 inches for molding and our bill was a around 2500 dollars more for doing all the way to the ceiling. But we have few upper cabinets and if we had more it would be more. As a % in our case the cost increase was about 10% of the kitchen cabinet cost.

I just went through this for a 20 x 14 kitchen and a 10' ceiling. The up charge varied from about $1500-6000 depending on the cabinet maker. These were custom quotes. The Home Depot cabinets were much higher surprisingly. They told me all their prices just went up. But $1500 is a pretty small part of the budget. This was just for the cabinets. The crown was already in the budget, and any "french lite" glass (divided), I was told, would be very expensive, so I did not have it quoted. The simple glass was not. We've decided to go a little lower than the full 10' in order to leave room for future ceiling treatments, but I think that cabinets up to the ceiling can be stunning!

I'm with you, rwiegand! My cabinets do not go all the way to the ceiling and that's how I wanted them. At 5'5", I have to stand on my toes to touch the items on the second shelf. I couldn't imagine storing things higher than that! Therefore, any accumulation on the tops of my cabinets can remain undisturbed. Consider it my contribution to the time capsule!

We have 10' ceilings, and most of the cabinets don't go all the way up (the "faux" cabinets that conceal the range hood do.) I have super large stacked crown molding with a fascia (not sure if that is the correct word?) to make the 42" cabs closer to the ceiling. But they don't touch. I didn't want them to...I wanted the variation in the tops so that I didn't have a straight line running across the top. Does that make sense? I think stacked cabs to the ceiling look nice, especially in kitchens with 9' ceilings. To me, it is a bit much in kitchens with 10' ceilings. Plus, I literally cannot reach anything over the second shelf as it is...I can imagine I would put stuff way up there and totally forget I had it! :)

I know you are just asking for price comparison and I don't have numbers to share for that. As others have shared there are so many variables that will contribute to that cost. I did want to share that I have been in a lot of new homes with 10 foot ceilings and cabines go the top can feel very awkward if not carried out well.

I wanted tall cabinets, but didn't want to have everything to the 10 foot height of ours, so opted for a variation. We went with a large sized coffered ceiling in our house that is under construction. The crown on all of the upper cabinets will touch the bottom of the coffered ceiling beams. With the exception of the baking area (cabinets between the double ovens and fridge cabinet) these cabinets were dropped even lower.

Excuse that we are unfinished, but you kind of get the feel. we still used glass in the upper sections and the cabinets are huge. Great for decorations or things you use once a year.

Here is a different wall in our under construction kitchen. The crown will be added and touch the bottom of the coffered ceiling.

We are just about to start building and will have 9'4 ceilings. Our builder told us that the difference between going to the ceiling and not was around 3,000. That was with the glass front. If it matters, ours will be cherry. We live in a smallish town in MN for geographical frame of reference.

We are paying $2800 more for about 24ft of stacked cabinets, no glass, dark-stained maple. We also have 10ft ceilings so the cabinets will go all the way to the ceiling, with molding on top of the 2 stacks. Hope that helps.