Amy-- Unfortuntately the idea of bringing down our ceiling does not work due to architectural constriants we have (stairs going upstairs run thru our kitchen) we can't lower the ceiling or soffit at all. When I get home, I will post some pictures of our kitchen as it is now "before" so you can see the size & layout constraints. Florantha, Cpartist, Sabjimata thanks for your posts & opinions as well. Yes, I agree & really like the stacked look & my kitchen can handle stacked, but question will be how high to stack & whether going to ceiling will overwhelm my space or not. If they were 9 feet it would be no question.

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.

A "variable speed" blower will perform exactly the same as a fixed speed blower with a single stage AC except that it slowly ramps up the speed (over about a minute) so that you don't get an immediate blast of air. It will make no difference to the overall cooling. If you have a suitable thermostat it may be able to slow the speed down to improve dehumidification. You won't experience higher bills - the VS motors are more efficient that PSC motors so they are talking rubbish. For some reason, they don't want to install a VS blower (maybe their profit is lower?)

I feel there's no generic or a correct answer; it all depends on the layout whether you are referring to doors leading to bedrooms, office, kitchen or pantry, or bathrooms, or hallways etc. etc. An 8' door may look freakishly tall in one setting and may look quite normal or elegant in another be it 9', 10' or 12' ceilings. The door width will also determine it's visual impact. Our 8' interior doors are 36" glass doors, opposite each other leading to the laundry and walk in pantry in a section that has 9' ceiling; why? because the huge adjoinning family room has 12' ceilings with 8' glass wall of sliders each with 30" transom windows above, it ties in nicely. What I'm trying to say is, draw it out or visualize the impact of what you would see from any particular point or location in your home.