6 wall cabinets in a just above builder grade line plus the labor to remove what's there and install new crown would probably be 2.1K in a builder grade line ($300 ea + the $300 trip charge for the installer.) In a mid grade line, that's easily doubled to tripled. It's your privilege to change your mind, but it's not worth doing.

Who designed the kitchen, and didn't they show you and have you sign off on the elevations?

This post was edited by hollysprings on Fri, Feb 7, 14 at 7:51

I'm irritated because I asked for 20" clearance from the very begining. They said they could set them wherever I wanted. Well sure, if I want the crown to look stupid they can set where I want.

Fridge wall with 36" cabinets, that can be raised two inches and not interfere with cabinet crown or wall crown.

Just raising cabinets as is leaves too small a gap to ceiling will look like a mistake...

At this point I'd consider :
raise cabinets to where you wanted, add a facia piece to molding so it goes to ceiling and use plinth blocks at intersections of cabinet molding and room molding.

Where's the KD in all of this? It's a design issue that should have been addressed before ordering.

This post was edited by jakuvall on Fri, Feb 7, 14 at 8:12

I tried to find pictures of plinth blocks, I have three corners where the crown wraps around an end wall, (2 outside corners? Right next to each other) and one normal outside corner. I couldn't find a picture to match.

I'm going to go with the 18" clearance. If in three months I still want them higher (and before I put in BS), I guess I'll raise them and do the plinthe blocks. It is really hard for me to let go...can ya tell! Lol. Well, lol in a year maybe.

pic- close up and wide shot

Since I'd make the cabinet molding go to the ceiling I'd be using the same crown for the entire length of the cabinet run (including across the window- and at the range but details there need to be worked out.)
Then you only have blocks on the ends of cabinet run.
Again- this is a design issue, not install.

This post was edited by jakuvall on Fri, Feb 7, 14 at 9:31

As for KD...the very first one I worked with ended up leaving the company, and the second one that came in mid stream seemed (my assumption I know) to feel like he was just trying to make the first one's design work, rather than getting creative and doing it his way. In fact my fridge wall upper arrangement came from Sena (01?) here on GW! (thankyou!!!) those two middle upper doors on the fridge wall will be glass. It seems they ordered both solid and glass doors for each door I wanted glass.

I just re looked at my renderings, and the lowest piece of crown doesnt show in any of the drawings...only the top 5 inches or so. The clearance issue came up (again) when I saw how low they had the vent hood, they had it at 25" from counter, which made it clear my cabinets were also too low. So they moved everything up, which worked as long as that lower piece of crown wasnt there. I wasnt looking at ceiling crown, I was looking at counter clearance and never noticed they were missing a part of the wall crown.

Sounds like no one was looking at the ceiling :(
IMO molding is as much an issue on the fridge wall and I'm not sure of a solution (that I'd like anyway)

Is this new construction? where those that needed to know didn't realize the room was going to be crowned because it wasn't in drawings?
or existing where the room molding was in their face?
I only ask for future generations ...
When room molding is being used, Planning with/around it is crucial to the design process. Design is about details.

Note the blocks I showed were intentionally simple, more elaborate details are sometimes used.

I do appreciate the pictures of the plinths, I just think they would look goofy on those end walls, the ones where the crown wraps around the butt end of the wall, you can see two of them in the fridge wall photo.

This is a remodel, so the crown has been there all along. The cabinet crown for the higher cabinets (pantry and 42"), will hit just below the lowest of the wall crown. The 36" wall cabinets I think could be raised 2" and their crown would still just end into the pantry cabinet and fridge panel.

We even considered putting shorter crown on top of the 42" cabs, but it would have to be an inch! Which would of course look silly.

Here's hoping that I end up loving being able to reach inside my cabinets more than I dislike having my coffeemaker and tall blender look scrunched on my counters.

I must try to focus on the positive.

What's your moulding look like that you are going to put on top of your cabinets? You could go with a small moulding and raise them to get over 18".

I would first explore the possibility of changing the crown molding to a shorter profile before changing the cabinets.

We did consider shorter cabinet crown, thanks for the suggestion though, itsbonly 3" crown now, and I thought 1" would look silly.

I am coming around, trying to embrace the super low (for me) cabinets. Mine were at 24", which is why this is such a drastic change for me.

Thanks!