Kitchen from front of countertop

from family room

ceiling photo

Personally, I would not put anything up there...looks neat and tidy and you won't have to dust anything. But if you want something.....see that plate on a rack you have on the side wall (under the register)...put a row of plates and some greenery up above your soffet. Add some candle sticks, figurines if you want too. Don't fill it up...maybe groups of three things. Nice remodel of your kitchen. and I love your glass top table!

If you have cats that are at all active, you can give them a few staggered platforms so they can hunt dust bunnies up there. That's one of the better uses I have seen made of those soffits. Remember that anything you put up there that is not vertical will collect dust and be a pain to dust.

If you are upgrading all of that, I would make the soffit go all the way to the ceiling over the cabinets and just get rid of the shelf and recess. It really shouldn't be that expensive in the scheme of the update to do this.

I'd take a trip to a fabric store and hunt up some large graphic fabrics to stretch over some stretcher bars. That would add in some badly needed color and let you scale the size appropriately to the space. Your accessories are too small and even though there aren't many, appear cluttered because they are the wrong scale. You need LARGE scale object. Work on your craft skills and do a giant paper mache vase to go with the fabric panels. Maybe a large sculpture. Nothing under 24" in height needs to go up there. And you don't need a lot of items to make a big impact when you use large scale objects.

Thank you all...great ideas!
hollysprings, what's the tallest vase or sculpture you recommend for this space? Also how far apart would you recommend they should be? We're starting the remodel in late June? I'll post more pictures after the work is done...Thanks again :)