Here is a screen shot of that part of the plan. If it helps.

This is not answering your question, but posing another question. We were going to go with all the way to the ceiling cabinets, but the KD said he wouldn't advise that b/c if the ceiling is not level it would be obvious in the top cabinets and even a molding would not be able to hide the difference. Is he feeding me full of bs or is this true?

hmm. I suppose. I did it in our reno (1910 brownstone), but the tops of the cabinets had crown, which hid any irregularities? We're building up these to meet the crown that will be going around the whole room (kitchen and dining room) - My GC is a (very good) carpenter, and hasn't said this would be an issue for us. My house is 160 years old, so I'm sure our ceilings aren't perfect. So maybe crown is key? If there are slight gaps in the way the crown meets the ceiling those can be hidden with putty and paint.

12" is awfully tall for a built up crown molding. I do 6" regularly, and it looks fine, but you'd have to have a lot more going on on top of that 12" filler to get it to look like anything but a wood soffit. I'd want to see the stack in person first, but I'd probably mount the 12" with blocking and then do a triple bead molding, leave some empty space and then maybe a library molding, then some blank space then some tall classic crown molding with a triple bead insert. Anything less elaborate will just look like a box on top of the cabinets with crown molding added. I know it's more money and late in the game, but could you not order 12" tall cabinets for the top of the whole run? It would look much more balanced.

As far as your hood goes, I'd probably do a chimney extender all the way to the ceiling, even though it vents outward through the wall. I'd probably also have stacked 12" cabinets on top of the adjacent cabinets or else eliminated the uppers all together. They really draw attention to their thinness and verticality, especially adjacent to the hood. In your case, I'd probably eliminate the small vertical cabinets entirely. It would be the easier and less expensive solution.

Wow thanks for that response live wire oak.

Our kitchen is SOOO small - we have exactly 4 upper cabinets, and these are two of them. ;-) So losing them is out of the question. Here is the whole thing:

There are some things that aren't reflected correctly in the plan - mainly that the window isn't shaped like that. It's accounting for the 6" casing that's going to be around the window.

I thought about doing upper cabinets on top. GC says the gap to be covered over the wall with the fridge on it is 12", whereas the gap over the cabinets on the oven wall is only 11". So obviously our ceilings aren't level. could we mount the cabinets on either side of the oven 1" lower so they'd fit? Or is that bad?

I am worried about what this build up would look like and we were thinking something exactly like what you described. Would that be good enough, though? Or is scrapping the whole idea and just ordering crown for the top of the cabinets, not trying to get them to the ceiling, the best option?

Our ceilings are 9" - I was afraid the chimney extender all the way to the ceiling would look too weird. If I can squeeze at 12" cabinet on top of the cabinets flanking the stove, could I then get a 24" cabinet for over the stove? Or I could have the 12" just over the chimney but at the ceiling, with a 12" chimney cover up to that?

Howmuchlonger: if the ceiling level is way off, you may see some discrepancy. If it is a little off, there may be some, but usually with some moulding its workable. It IS more work though. A soffit to the ceiling hides a bit more discrepancy than cabinets up to the ceiling. However, I think the space above the cabinet thing started as a lazy builders way of not having to deal with unlevel ceilings or resolve strange ceiling designs and then took off on its own as a "look".

As for the kitchen in question, I agree with the poster who said to take out the skinny cabinets on each side of the range and do the chimney all the way to the ceiling.

If you Can't lose those cabinets for whatever reason I would draw out the following to see how it looks. Bridge the two cabinets with a soffit/moulding build up unit across the top. Then run the chimney into this built up area. The cabinetry portion will become an upside down U which would unite the two and reduce the verticality of the two alone which now look..sliver like. I also agree that the whole think can't be all built up moulding, it is going to need some flat 'soffit' looking portion to it to avoid overpowering the cabinets themselves.

I'm facing the same dilemma. We too have 9' ceilings and my cabinets are 42" tall. They were installed by the builder like that so I had not saying back then. I'm now in the process of remodeling my kitchen. I also have 12" inches from the top of the cabinets to the ceiling. I thought about adding a 12" cabinets to the 42" but I was told by my GC that I won't then have room to finish the top with a crown molding. So, I'm in a bottleneck position right now. I'll be following this post very closely for suggestions. I also originally wanted a chimney style range hood (we liked the Zephyr Savonna style in SS)and tile behind it all the way to the ceiling but now I'm not sure what to do. I like your range hood that you got for $600. This would be another good choice for me.
Where did you get your RH for $600?
:)

haha I got it at a local appliance store (in SE MA)- it was a bargain.

I think you're right about the crown - I'll let live wire oak answer for sure but I'd think you could just put a small bead (half round? something like that) to finish the top. Which is an issue for us since we have 7/14 crown around the adjoining dining room, though I suppose that could just die into the cabinets.

One other option would be to forgo the chimney style hood and do cabinets all the way across with an undermount slide out range hood that is essentially concealed by the cabinetry. you lose the first shelf of storage in the cabinet but then the rest is storage. Its a completely different look . I have done this a couple times in small kitchens. Not the best option if you are a high heat high volume saute type person, but ok for the average user.

Hogar, what about doing 39" cabinets (if you manu.carries them and Then the 12" cabinet with a moulding (or 36" and 15"). The tile to the ceiling behind a hood is a nice look.

Palimpsest, that's what I was thinking - I probably didn't describe it very well but that's what I was trying to say when I asked about buying a 12" cabinet for over the hood to bridge the other two cabinets. I guess I was wondering if that was doable with the type of hood I already have, though I don't see why it wouldn't be. My hood isn't a chimney style, it is wall mount with a flat top but I was going to add a chimney cover for aesthetics. Something like this, but with the cabinets on either side. Can't find a pic that illustrates it exactly.

I have 15" cabinets above 42s (ceiling is 10 feet). I think we allowed 6 or 8" for our stacked crown. I had originally thought we could do 12" cabinets above, but now I'd almost like to have 18s -- but not enough to give up anything else. A lot of things large enough to display that high up are too tall for the open space (a 12" cabinet may have 10-1/2" of clearance, give or take a bit depending on the thickness of the box material and keep in mind that you won't be able to see the bottom of that cabinet and may want to set somethings up a bit).

About going to the ceiling, our stacked crown has a piece that allows us to mount and adjust for any uneven ceiling areas -- and there always are some. It is a straight board (maybe 1x4?) mounted almost flush with the front of the cabinet box. The crown is then attached to that board -- you can have part of it showing or not, but the slight variance is absorbed in how much space is at the bottom of it were it is least noticed.

We have the same vent hood and 15" cabinets on either side. We are having a sheet metal person cover a piece of plywood, cut to fit inside the opening above the hood, with stainless steel to match and then we will attach to the side cabinets. If he does a good enough job, the piece should look like an extension of the hood. Above that will be a single piece of crown moulding which goes all the way across the cabinets and the hood.

I copied and pasted your responses so my husband could see. One thing he pointed out that I forgot to, is that if we do carry the cabinets up to the ceiling, we would top it with the crown that is going around both the kitchen and the dining room. This crown is big, covers 5.1", so only 6.9" is needed to be covered by whatever filler/trim we have. Does that make a difference to you, live wire oak, in what the end product would look like?

Also, putting cabinets on top would mean we could not carry this crown around the room, and what to do over the refrigerator and pull out pantry would be an issue.

Palimpsest,
This is what I currently have before the renovation. Sorry Kpaquette, for using your posting but I think we can both find a solution here.
Please advise how you would handle it!! Another option I love is a custom made wood hood to go to the ceiling and deeper than the rest of the cabinets in a hearth/mantle style but I'm not sure if they can make for 30" wide. All I know is that I want to make the area above my stove be a focal/WOW point.

I guess I am not sure why you don't think you can use a 12" cabinet with the vent going through it for storage. The vent, what, 7" round probably? Or a rectangle? and the cabinet will be 30" wide by 12" by 12"? Especially in a storage-deprived small kitchen, I'd definitely use that space! We had a vent running through the cabinet over our range hood in the last kitchen. Granted it was the small-capacity 3.5x10" duct, but still.... I kept lightweight things I didn't use much up there, like cloth baskets with food coloring, easter egg dyes, cookie cutters, icing tips, etc.

Hi

I am using a quirky wireless so I go in and out of contact

Kpaquette: I think the cabinets going across the top of the hood could solve your storage and esthetic problem both. If the moulding at the very top matched the moulding in the rest of the room I think that would be awesome...it would look very planned.It sounds as if you were doing a "paint to match" option anyway.

Hogar: I believe stacked cabinets will work if the lower bank is shorter than what you currently have so the upper bank can be tall enough to be useful. The cabinetry style hoods come in various sizes but you could also put a 36" over a 30" range. Or the unit could be fabricated from available cabinet panels of some sort.

I guess I wasn't sure if there would be an issue with the vent unit itself. But that's probably what we'll do.

Not sure what to do about that gap to fill, though. And I'm terrified my paint to match (even using their paint and glaze) won't turn out well. But I guess I'm stuck.