What's the height of your kitchen ceiling?
How tall are the cabinet boxes?
How much space do you have NOW between the countertop and the bottom of the cabinets.
Are your existing soffits open or closed up with sheetrock?
How long is the run of cabinets?

if you like your soffits, then keep them. I was lusting for either display space on top of cabinets, or ceiling height cabinets - but we replaced our old cabinets, so keeping the old ones was not a priority. Still, for me, if we had kept them - I'd still have gotten rid of the things.

I am short too (5'4'') but am planning those top cabinets to hold seldom-used stuff that I still want to have easily accessible in the kitchen.

Beware that the space behind the soffits might have been used by the builder for wonderful runs of cable or plumbing, and removal might entail lots of other work that you cannot foresee.

Also, in order to remove the soffits (if you go that way), you will have to take the cabinets down and then rehang them. (or I can't see how you could do it any other way)

Good luck! You might try looking at the finished kitchen site to get ideas and se what YOU like in terms of soffits yes or no.

Here is a link that might be useful: finished kitchens

I personally dislike soffits and when (if?) we get around to remodeling our kitchen, I'm taking them out. BUT if you're planning to reuse the kitchen cabinets it would be massively less expensive and quicker to leave the soffits in. If I were you, I wouldn't even think about taking them out.

We kept our soffit for the simple fact that there was no where to move the internal pipes/plumbing, and if they could possibly be rerouted, it would cost a mint with our layout. I don't dislike soffits, what I do dislike more is seeing cabinets with the "open space" above them. I look at this as a dust catcher and a place for clutter and junk...but that's my opinion. I have seen a few nicely decorated cabinet tops but, gosh, I'd hate to have to clean up there...luckily I don't have to.

If I didn't have soffits, I'd probably want my cabinets to go all the way up to the ceiling, though I'm short as well. I'd use the space to stash slightly used items, and I'd need a step stool readily available. I do prefer to be able to reach everything in my cabinets all the time though.

So, having soffits works for me.

Having your current cabinets go up to the ceiling will depend on the length of the boxes. You may find that putting them up that high, will be too high for you to reach. Measure, measure. Perhaps you can get matching molding for the cab tops so the boxes don't have to be so high for your short stature. Just a thought.

I'm not sure, but isn't the standard height from the finished floor to the bottom of the uppers usually about 54"? That gives about 18" between countertop and uppers. Personally, I would not remove a soffit just to move existing uppers up to the ceiling. If you did that, you'd probably have 28" between the countertops and the uppers (the uppers would be 64" off the floor) and to me that's not practical; too high. I think people normally remove soffits to either get taller uppers that go up to the ceiling (while maintaining about 18" between countertop and bottom of uppers), or to stack a second cabinet above the upper to the ceiling, or to have empty space above uppers rather than the soffit (and then you have that dusting issue!). If I were you and I wanted to keep my existing uppers, I would not remove the soffits. You can make them interesting. I love RobinD's where she put crown molding above to create a plate rail. Good luck with your decision.

teedup1 I will go back and measure everything. I know we have a lot of work to do! I LOVED the idea of crown molding. I hadn't even thought of that. I think that is what I will do. Of course that might change when the contractor comes. My goal is to have my ideas firmly in place so that I don't get talked into doing things that will cost me more and that I don't want to do. Of course I want to listen to an expert because they will have good ideas, but I want to make sure that I know where I am headed.

Strangely enough, I'm short and don't like soffits---would prefer 42" cabinet to ceiling; my husband is tall and likes soffits. We have soffits.

Even though my preference was not to have them, I really don't give them a thought anymore. I figure if we end up building another home, it will be my turn without the soffits. Meanwhile, it works just fine for us.

Homersgarden,

When your friends suggested having your cabinets go up to the ceiling if you remove your soffits, I'm pretty sure they didn't mean just move your present 30" uppers up by 10". They most likely meant put new taller 39" uppers.

If it's not anything that bothers you now, it may not be worth it. And you might not be lucky to find an empty cavity in there. When we removed ours, we had to reroute plumbing, not an easy or inexpensive job if you are not an experienced DIY.

My sister DID remove hers and repainted her old cupboards and added crown molding. I'm including a pic so you can see the difference. Her DH removed the end panel of her wooden soffits (easier than if they'd been drywall), and looked down to see an empty cavity. They were lucky.

Another point to think about... is this remodel going to add significant value to your kitchen? Or, would a new owner likely tear out this kitchen and start over anyways. I have another sister who 'redid' her kitchen with the old cupboards, but figures new owners would demo it, so she didn't do as extensive or expensive a remodel.