We had a filler piece in top of our cabinets which the crown was attached to. This way if the ceiling was off the crown would still be touching the ceiling but the space between the crown and the cabinet (ie the filler piece) would fluctuate. Hopefully my description made sense.

"The ceiling was off by 1/2 inch in some spots. "

Do you mean the ceiling is wavy? If so, the contractor's suggestion may be your only option. Dropping it 1.5 inches is better because it would hide the uneveness better than having the molding touch in some places and be 1/2 away in others. I've seen re-done kitchens where the crown molding is not directly against the ceiling and it looks very good.

However, if it is straight, but slopes down from one end of a run to the other end, another option would be the filler piece as suggested above and you may like that look better.

This post was edited by Dovetonsils on Thu, Dec 25, 14 at 23:29

Filler piece as described by Disaster28 - it's the only way to make your ceiling look even all the way around.

We had 3-piece crown molding: Soffit + Filler/Stock + Crown. The middle filler piece was a flat piece that was cut to fit the space while the soffit and crown remained the same throughout the kitchen.

See the "upper moulding detail" below:

Deleted

This post was edited by Tony2147 on Thu, Jan 22, 15 at 17:24