So the family room, kitchen, and breakfast room are all one big room? I imagine there will need to be a support beam in that expanse, unless the builder can hide it in a coffer. We have an open kitchen, breakfast, family room, too...but ours is subtly divided by a huge cased opening that is almost the width of the room. In your case, I would be pressuring the builder to keep the coffers in just the family room. It will provide a touch of differentiation.

I'm sorry for the confusing sounding room! It does sound like its one big room the way I posted it. The whole area is somewhat in the shape of an L. There is a support beam running through the nook and the kitchen (essentially dividing the two areas). It is the support beam for the wall in the family room. I will try to post our plan tomorrow to give you a better idea...I have had a hard time doing that though! I do agree with you about stopping the coffers to add to the character of the family room. Thank you!

Hello,
We just finished building our home and you may want to check out our builder's website/facebook. There are lots of beautiful pics of his finished homes and he does 10' and coffered in almost all of them. You could get lots of ideas. I'm not sure he has one exactly like your describing, but seeing those images may help! His website is: stonecrofthomes.net
Jill :)

Oh, shoot!

You could have the coffered ceiling end at a last beam cutting across the area. It sounds like it's tailor-made for that already.

IMHO, if you go coffered in the kitchen, then with too high or too crowned cabinets it just starts looking cluttered. My opinion.

I envy you the tall ceilings. I have a ranch. 'Nuff said. :)

However, if your kitchen is tall, I'd look at going with taller cabinets, taking into consideration enough space above them to use a trim that mimics the coffers. That in itself should give you enough continuity. Then a beautiful light fixture could be more of a focal point.

Now, if you want to have the coffers all the way thru, then it's another cabinet, lighting discussion. How exciting!
!

Wow. What beautiful homes Jill's builder makes. These don't look like the normal, cookie-cutter, McMansions at all. Such a gorgeous change. and what a lovely home you're going to have!

How exciting.

Thank you all for your input! Jill, your builder does a beautiful job with his houses...I know you will enjoy yours tremendously! Thank you for the link, it did provide insight into our dilemma. I do think we came to a conclusion today with our meeting with the cabinet maker and the builder!! We took nini's suggestion and created a support wall between nook and FR with molding to match the legs of our island. The coffers will stop in the FR. We also took the hood/vent up to the ceiling but left the other cab's various heights at 8 and 9 feet. Thank you all again...your input is wonderful!
CEFreeman...I'm sure your ranch is wonderful too!! I'm starting to think these high ceilings are a pain! Now we can't find interior doors that are made high enough with the exact look we want! Such is life! :).

So many options before you. I will post some visual ideas
to see what works for what you want. I do not think it will
be too cluttered, but this is just me. Maybe think about
what you want for your space. Visuals always help me
edit, keep, throw away or improve on my ideas. Hope these
help you. Oh and keep in mind about lighting and textures.
Lighting with a coffered ceiling has it's issues.
~boxerpups

Not a kitchen but a room off a kitchen

More of a plain ceiling with less emphasis on beams. This
is lovely too.

We sort of had some of the same issues. I recommend making sure you know what you want your kitchen cabinet design to look like and then focus on any ceiling treatment. BUT, I say that bc I'm a symmetry nut, it makes me crazy when a coffered ceiling (or any other type) is "off" from the kitchen cabinet layout.

For example, what if you have this amazing hood that looks fanatastic, but bc of the ceiling treatment, you end up with beams not centered or laid "off" from the hood layout. It's just a pet peeve of mine :) And, you don't want to get stuck in a rut with your kitchen cabinet layout bc of a ceiling treatment!

I ended up not doing any treatment to my kitchen ceiling (other than crown around the room) and put in a header/doorway from the kitchen family room. I did that bc I just couldn't get the beams to extend from the FR to the K and still align nicely with the cabinet layout. And, I knew it would make me insane every morning when I woke up :) Plus, I loved the kitchen the KD came up with and the ceiling treatment seemed to just take away from it and look cluttered as cefreeman noted above.