I've seen cabinets with a second, shorter section that reach the ceiling and in photographs they look excellent. There are certainly some GW members who have posted nice photos of this look. I know on the Crown Point Cabinetry website there are photos of this arrangement. All in all, I think it would probably look really good.

I assume you mean Pennsylvania Amish? If so, everyone here raves about Dutch Wood custom cabinets near Harrisburg. We had just placed our cabinet order when I heard about them or I would have driven the 2 hours to see their shop and get a quote. They will travel so are not limited to just that area....worth a look.

Going to the ceiling - no dust problems. Take a look at a few other postings - one had 10 feet ceilings and used glass to break it up a bit.
I am betting you are from the midwest.
I did not go with Amish cabinets but if I had more time, I would have explored the option.
Good luck

You want the whole cabinets+moldings to go to the ceiling. You can do stacked cabinets, but 12" on top of 42" is the wrong proportions and leaves you no room for moldings---and the only time you want that is if you are doing a modern style. You've got 54" in height to play with. You could do taller cabinets like 48"+6" of crown molding, or 45"+9" of crown. I know that Kraftmaid makes the taller cabinets, and you can certainly get them custom from a custom maker of your choice. Or you could do (30"+15")cabinets+9"crown, or (30"+18")cabinets + 6" crown. That would be readily available from just about any cabinet company, but would be more costly than the single tall cabinet. You avoid the potential of warping stiles with the stacked. Super tall cabinets are risky from that aspect. The height of the molding will depend on what type of look you want to go for, whether traditional, modern, or transitional.

Wow, thanks guys! Lots of info! I'm actually from Holmes county Ohio (it's the largest concentration of Amish in one area.. although Pennsylvania gets more tourism and attention for it!).

I am definitely thinking about going to the ceiling. I appreciate the help with the exact dimensions, GreenDesigns. I hadn't considered the molding and was just adding cabinets up to the top! Thanks for the suggestions.

I am actually thinking about going with more semi-custom cabs on the wall from someplace like Kraftmaid and then using the local cabinet makers to make my island since it is going to be a little more customized. I'm also thinking about going with the same door style, but using painted white wood on the walls and a stained wood on the island. I've seen a lot of kitchens here on the forum that do that and look so classy!

Does anyone have any brand preferences for which semi-custom cabinet companies have good quality/good prices? It's so hard to compare them side-by-side!

Thanks a lot!

We did custom Famish cabs for our kitchen (we live in Maryland). I have no regrets. They turned out beautiful and I was very involved in the process. If we had gone semi custom, we would have used DeWilis.

AMISH, not Famish. Darn autocorrect.

Haha, yes, autocorrect. Got to love technology! =)

Thanks for the input. I will have to check into DeWilis! I have custom Amish made cabinets in my current home and had a great time customizing them. The only problem I had was the time it took them to do them and the lack of communication (no phones!). I can't tell you how many times I showed up at their place and found no one around and couldn't get a hold of them! Ugh!

However, I can't complain about the workmanship, so I guess it was worth it!

Thanks a lot!

As an interior designer, it is wonderful that you are concerned with appearance. However, as someone who cooks a great deal the question is what are your storage needs? If you are young with a growing family, I recommend maximizing your storage because you can never have enough. If you like to cook, make your pantry twice the size you think you need. If you are a baker, I recommend incorporating a bake center (I will explain this if you need more info concerning it). If you have a young family, I recommend incorporating a small area to store toys.
As far a cabinets, if you have the $$ go custom - a nice classic wood and you will not be sorry. Make them tall and it will give your kitchen a sleek look. Take infinite care in choosing the hardware as that will give your kitchen the
look you want.
If you like to cook also incorporate a section for cookbooks - again - make it twice the size you need now - your collection will grow.

Lyns06
Check around the area - also Indiana has a lot of Amish that make cabinets and if you contact me off line - I have a name that a friend used.
Good luck.

Senator13 - yup love that predictive text. Happens to me all of the time and I cringe when I catch it too late - usually, just as I hit the send button!

Custom amish cabinet shop

Here is a link that might be useful: Custom Woodworking

Our style is transitional so we planned minimal moldings. We have nominally 8' ceilings, but it turns out that at the shortest point due to variation, we are about an inch short of 8'. Our cabinets have a 1" light rail added below to cover the under cabinet lights. We had planned on having 17" between the cabinets and counter tops - 18" is standard today, but I'm short and preferred to cut that a bit to improve reach-ability of the uppers. Because our worst case distance came out about an inch short, the distance between the light rail and the counter top came out to 16".

If you are going to the ceiling and want to maintain the 18" distance between counter and uppers with 9' ceilings, you have 54" to work with including moldings, light rail, etc. Even if you don't want much in the way of moldings, you might leave a few inches of that for molding and height variation. Something like a 36" cabinet topped by a 15". For more molding you could cut one of those by 3".

Here are ours to the ceiling (not stacked because we are just 8' ceiling):

oops.
I stacked. 8' ceilings.
I like 'em. Far better than sofits or empty space!

Just shows to go 'ya that one man's kitchen is another's decorating nightmare. [LOL]

Our cabinets are DeWils. They filled the order exactly and everything was well packed to arrive in perfect condition. There was one mistake in the plans that we didn't catch when we approved them - a door only cabinet was shown for our prep sink when we wanted a false drawer front over a door. Our GC made a mistake in ordering another cabinet and ordered a drawer over door when we wanted just a door. The replacement drawer front and doors arrived in two weeks.

They are very solidly built too. The plywood is a very good grade. We bought their frameless line to maximize storage.

We were able to customize the drawer heights for the cabinets and their charge for that was pretty reasonable, IMO.

Cabinets to the ceiling are a big hit! Recently, I saw pictures of this type of decor somewhere and it hit me right away, I decided that in my home I have to do it! You know, the costs will probably be higher, but on the other hand, sitting in the kitchen, which you completely like, is your dream one, will make your coffee taste better in the morning and the dinner will be more pleasant to cook. My advice: if it doesn't strain your budget, do not hesitate. Remember that you are supposed to like it above all else