I have 8' ceilings and have made my own stacked cabinets. I took 42" cabs and put a rail where 30" would end at the top, on a regular cabinet. I put 30" doors on the bottom and 12" doors on the top. Voila! Stacked cabinets. My evil plan is to someday buy (or make -- I haven't given up) beaded inset face frames. I'll make the frame the entire 42" tall, with the dividing rail. On another wall, I just found 12" tall cabinets at the reuse center and stuck 'em up there. They fit beautifully and will be stacked when I'm dong painting, etc. Again, with future beaded face frames, it'll be the entire 42" tall. I've heard people here say that under 9' ceilings the stacked cabinets look bad, or something. Can't remember what, but that was the gist of it. I think it looks great. I love the glass doors I found for the uppers, so to me it looks airy with the white cabinet insides showing. I am putting only scribe molding on the top because there isn't room for fancy molding. I don't mind, though. I'm very traditional but simple and clean. I'd ask him for a mock-up or where he's installed them before. Proportion does make a huge difference.

In a previous kitchen I had 8' ceilings and I squeezed 42" cabinets in, with minimal crown molding. It meant I had to shorten the space between the counter and the bottom of the upper cabinets. The plus - the tall cabinets made the ceiling look taller, and the kitchen larger. It was quite a remarkable effect. The minus - what I mentioned about the shorter distance between the counter and uppers, which I regretted. Live and learn. Not only will stacked cabinets under an 8' ceiling visually negatively affect the feeling of openness and height, as Sophie and others pointed out, but you will also be foregoing shelf space. The stacked cabinets will force you to lose at least one shelf's worth, or maybe two. Given my experience with my last kitchen and its 8' ceilings, I would get 39" cabinets, 3" crown, no stacks, and thereby get the feeling of height I mentioned. You won't be compromising on the space between the counter and uppers--which should be 18" BTW. You won't lose shelves either. It will cost much less than stacked cabinets too. A win-win-win.

First a question about the height of the desk...Is it 24" from the floor to the top surface of the desk? That seems a bit low. Will you be using a regular kitchen chair at the desk or one on casters? Also, is there a drawer above the space the chair goes in? We got rid of our desk when we remodeled the kitchen, so I can't measure it, but I'm pretty sure it was 30" high (like a standard kitchen table), with a shallow drawer above the kneespace. We used a kitchen chair there (18" seat height). I'm sitting at a regular desk right now and there is 24" from the floor to where the desk starts, then a shallow drawer, and the top is 28" from the floor. Maybe someone else who has recently planned a kitchen desk will chime in with their dimensions. Just want to make sure you have enough room for your knees!

I have stacked uppers and love the look of it. We have just about 9' ceilings. From the bottom of the cabinet to the ceiling is 52". The door (not including frame) on the lower is 28" and the upper door is 12" - the rest is taken up by the frame and molding. Here is a pic (taken before kitchen was fully done): To the far right of this picture is our stacked upper that comes down to the countertop, but doesn't go all the way to the ceiling like the others. This is where we store our dishes and silverware so we were going for a hutch type effect, and this works well given the proximity of this cabinet to the DW and the table. here is a pic of Woodmode cabinets with stacked uppers and with glass doors and lighting in the upper cabinets. I have to say that I did not like the light seeping out around the edges of those upper doors (the issue is not apparent from the photo I am posting). Perhaps this is better pulled off with full overlay cabinets vs. inset?? or maybe this just bothers me??