I too love the look of stacked cabinets to the ceiling. We have ordered ours from Crown Point & the upper most upper is 19.25 inches tall & the lower upper is 37.75 inches tall. There is going to be a piece of trim between the two upper cabinets & plain 2x2 cove at the celing. I went back & forth about the bead & finally decided to go without it. I read that beaded inset catches a lot of dust & I also felt that the bead looked a little more "fancy" & less period looking than I wanted. But I do like the look of a bead. I would go with the look you love - try not to get swayed by the taste of the designer or you may regret it in the end. I think double stacked cabinets, although more expensive, look much better than layers of built-up trim.

He said "people don't like them in the end"? What people is he talking about? Everyone here who has them seems to love them and many of us who don't have them would love to have them. With cabinets that high, it hardly matters what you put in them, because you can't see much detail anyway. I have one set of cabinets similar to this style and wish I had more. I hardly notice what's in them, just that there's some lighter, more open feeling space in that area.

If you like them, get them, and ignore your designer!

I think the cabinets that go to the ceiling look Fantastic!
I would have done that but couldn't due to a steel beam that spans the length on my ceiling. I do think though that I would do it like joy 20. I think you will get more room. A 12" inset box leaves very little glass area. Talk to the guy making your cabinets and find out how wide the stiles are. You can then draw the box on a piece of paper. Do what you want. If you are drawn to a bead, you will regret it later if you let someone talk you out of it.

We have 9 ft ceilings too and are only doing 42" uppers with a regular crown. If I could have afforded it, I would have ordered stacked glass uppers on top. How can you not like more storage?

The upper small cabinets are basically useless for everyday storage but look fantastic...especially with the shaker look. I especially like them with seeded glass. I am also a big fan of the bead..it is not fancier or less with the period. It is a subtle accent for a white kitchen that looks very upscale.

Travis Alfrey Woodworking
Pinehurst, NC

I had the small cabinets on top of the primary cabinets in my previous home and I (we) loved them! True, they are hard to get to as I am only 5'2" but they were great for storage. I had the kids easter baskets, cake pedestals, serving trays, bean pots, and all the seldomly used items in there. When we moved to a house with a setof "regular" cabinets I had to come up with a new plan to store all those items.

If you are attracted to them I say disregard your designers opinion and go with your gut. All you need is a good step stool to put in your broom closet and you're set!

We have 9 ft ceilings and our cabinets are 47" with a 3" crown. The door has two panels, a tall one and a small one and it looks great. I like it better than stacked cabinets because you can access everything through one door and it's a lot cheaper. Our small panel at the top is wood but we could have put in glass if we wanted to store decorative items. I've also seen people do creative things to fill that space if you use 42" cabinets. There used to be several threads with lots of pictures but they dropped off a long time ago.

I love the look of the bead but hate the idea of grease, dust and dripped food getting stuck in them. I'm not one to clean with toothpicks...too much maintenance for me.