Cabinets are one of the most expensive things you’ll purchase when building or renovating your home. Obviously, the MORE cabinets you have, the GREATER the cost!

So … if you have taller ceilings and want to avoid the cost of taking cabinets to your ceiling (you can’t reach these cabinets easily anyway!), you do have some options!

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HOW TO FILL SPACE BETWEEN CABINETS AND CEILING 

Here are several options …

You can build the cabinets to the ceiling (most expensive option), keep the area open (no cost!), build a soffit to match the cabinets, or add a drywall soffit.

Below I’ll share photo examples (and the why behind) how I filled the space above cabinets in my own home.

FYI: I avoided cabinets to the ceiling in all rooms to keep my cost down!

MY KITCHEN CABINETS

Our kitchen ceiling is 10’ at the highest point (inside the tray). The perimeter of the room is 9’. We didn’t want our cabinets to go clear up to 9’, so our custom cabinet maker added a soffit that matched the cabinets. It all is one continuous piece from the cabinets up to the crown molding.

This is your most sophisticated option if you do not want your cabinets to go to the ceiling. It does add some cost, but not nearly as much as building cabinets to the ceiling!

You might enjoy How to Choose Inset vs. Overlay Cabinets for your Home.

 

SPACE ABOVE BOOKSHELVES

Our family room ceiling is 10’ at the highest point, and we certainly did NOT want the bookshelves to be that tall! It’s already hard enough to fill shelves!

I believe my builder came up with the idea to build a drywall soffit above our family room bookshelves … kudos to him! This is an inexpensive way to give the area more of a built-in feel, as opposed to looking like free-standing bookshelves with dead space above them.

MY HOME OFFICE CABINETS

My office is small. I mean, TINY! The small dimensions make the 10’ ceiling appear even taller! Again, I did not want the added expense of building the cabinets to the ceiling, so we left the area open in here.

I am NOT of the ‘decorating above cabinets’ camp, but I think the subtle wallpaper adds just enough visual interest that the area doesn’t look blah and boring (and too tall)!

The crown molding detail on the cabinets and the extensive crown at the ceiling give the cabinets more of a finished feel.

You might enjoy Differences between Stock, Semi-Custom, and Custom Cabinets.

MY MASTER BATHROOM CABINETS

Just like my office, we left the space open above my master bathroom cabinets. The cabinets go almost up to the 9′ ceiling, and they appear even higher because the crown molding on the wall brings down the ceiling.

The crown molding detail on the cabinets gives the cabinets a polished finished look.

 

CONCLUSION

I hope the examples above give you some good ideas of how to fill the space between your own cabinets and ceiling! What option do you think you’ll do?! You can’t go wrong with any option!

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