We had the same problem. Our remodelers caught it early, and one of the guys spent a lot of time leveling the ceiling using joint compound ("mud"), He is really knowledgeable - used to do stucco work. Our ceiling was off by an inch in one of the corners. They might have to take down some of your cabinets, but it can be corrected. Good luck!

And I thought I was the only one!

Fortunately I have a galley kitchen so the solution was easier. We lowered the cabinets ~1'' on the one side - so the crown is the same on the top.

Interesting (and happy) the cabinet to countertop difference is not at all noticable.

northcarolina described our situation perfectly. Vertical, flat piece of molding bridges the gap between top of cabinets and ceiling, maybe stopping just shy of the ceiling, not sure about that. Crown molding can ride up and down the vertical surface of the other piece of molding to adjust for the uneven ceiling. Once it's all done it's barely noticeable and only if you're looking for it.

Here's a visual if it helps...

No one's ceiling is level. Not even new construction. A contractor should be familiar with this situation, as this is the case in every kitchen in which the molding touches the ceiling. If your contractor is not familiar with it, I would be concerned about his lack of experience. I am linking a thread; Buehl's post and illustration are particularly helpful.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread about Uneven Ceilings

We have a >100 year old house which a significant slant. Our contractor used a 2 piece crown as described above and no one would notice it at all. Pretty routine problem I think.

I would cut a tapered shim to cover the gap. A 1/2" sounds like at lot, but at ceiling height and with a nice paint job it will nearly disappear.

Shouldn't the crown molding be scribed to the ceiling? That's when they use a scribe tool and follow the contour of the ceiling, then cut the crown to mirror the ceiling. Our first kitchen installer didn't know how to do that and we ended up with very crooked crown; the second installer redid the crown and scribed it and it came out perfect.

Scribing only works for very minor out of level situations at the ceiling. The correct solution is a multi piece crown, as shown above. The bottom piece is attached to the cabinets, and the top piece follows the ceiling slope and is tight to the ceiling.

If the ceiling is significantly out of level, then the cure is to address that issue before cabinet installation, and before the cabinet order is finalized. Otherwise, you'll be in the situation that my client had where the contractor removed 4 layers of drywall and shimming that she didn't know was there. Her new ceiling height was 6" taller than the original ceiling height measurement that we had used for the original design. That means a delay waiting on a 3rd piece of profiled stock to arrive to take up the extra space. Space that could have gone to the cabinet instead. And even with the all new ceiling, it still wasn't level because it's an old house with a bit of a sag to the actual floor joists. It was close enough with the 3 pc crown that it was unnoticeable though.

Ours were fixed by doing the floating/mud technique. The crown moulding was put in first and the fix tapered towards the moulding, so that it all matched up by thte time they made it to the edge. They didn't really make them level, they're not level now, but they "look" level." It's a large area and it worked out fine.

Thanks so much, everybody. The contractor is familiar with the situation, but what he proposes to do (lower the crown by sliding it down the filler portion) does not appeal to me because of the dust-collecting-icky gap issue. That is the reason I wanted to bring the cabinets all the way to the ceiling in the first place... Sigh

The crown should flex enough that there shouldn't be a dust-collecting-icky gap. At least ours was...I'm no carpenter so maybe 1/2 an inch is too much for flexing the crown???

This post was edited by dcward89 on Thu, Sep 18, 14 at 12:50