If you've never been in a room that was badly proportioned due to too-high ceilings, you may not really believe there is such a thing. But there is, and it feels awful. Just very wrong -- but hard to put your finger on why. As a general rule, 9' is safe and comfortable for just about any room size. Higher ceilings can be are nice in large rooms; and 8' ceilings are wonderful for cozier spaces. One trick we've learned in this house is that a small area with lower ceilings at the entry to a larger space really 'opens up' the room with 8' ceilings. Our downstairs hallway has 7'6" ceilings, which we thought was a problem until we lived there a while. But now the 8' ceilings in the kitchen and den at either end feel much nicer, and the 'transition spaces' really function as transitions.

Thanks SOOO much for all the feedback, and I'm sorry that I hadn't come back to this post till now. You all raised really helpful issues for me to consider, but I have to say that I still haven't firmly decided what to do. I'm probably at 75 percent in terms of keeping the fixture - it just feels like it goes with the room. I think I'm satisfied that most of the concerns are manageable. For example, I've tested and it doesn't block the TV, and we have had a coffee table directly below the junction box in every configuration of the room since we moved here a decade ago, so I think it's reasonable bet that this will stay under any future layout. In terms of the kids, I have 2 boys who are the types who are constantly bouncing off the walls, so it's not inconceivable that they might hang off the ceiling - but they are old enough to know better and tall enough that if they were going to do this, they probably already would have! They have a Wii and don't seem to jump a lot, and if that begins to happen I would probably move the Wii to our (tiny) playroom instead. My real remaining uncertainty is just whether it looks goofy, like lipstick on a pig. I don't think so, but I'm obviously biased. And I don't really trust my own judgment after a couple of botched decisions on this sort lately (our kitchen reno should have been done except that I picked a totally nutty contractor, who thankfully walked away.) SO I'm going to stew about it a bit longer, see if I can find a semi-flush fixture that I like (at least one that isn't $500 and up, which seems to be the case for all the ones like), and give it a week or two of more consideration. Thanks so much for all your really helpful comments!!

Did a 1959 ranch galley last summer, 8' ceilings, took out the soffits and took 42" uppers right to the ceiling, no crown or molding. Doing a 1979 ranch galley this summer, 8' ceilings, took out the soffits and just got my cabinets with 39" uppers. Going to start installing this weekend. After I ordered though I realized I blew it and will have to be creative. I have a shaker style cabinet and want a simple look on the crown. The company's simple crown is only two inches tall so I am going to be an inch short of the ceiling. So I thought I could just push the uppers up an inch but NOOOO, I had to order one of those taller uppers with an appliance cabinet in it so it sits on the counter top and will set the top height of all my uppers! So I either have to leave the inch gap or I need to build up my crown which shouldn't be too hard and I can keep it simple looking like I want.

It's not ceiling height, it's the context of the ceiling height. It seems like the increase in ceiling height corresponded with the rise of the McMansion. Not that every new house with a higher ceiling is a McMansion, but I think it's a result of the same mindset. Most McMansions are a checklist turned into a house. Certain elements are "desirable" or "good" and certain elements are undesirable or bad. The thing about McMansions has generally been that it doesn't matter so much how the "good" gets there, as long as it's there somewhere, that's sufficient. Context and proportion and all those sorts of things are mostly secondary to meaning the list of requirements. High ceilings are one aspect of that. I'm not against high ceilings. I am not against low ceilings. I'm against doing either when doing so flies in the face of good proportions or good sense. I have lived in places with 14' ceilings, 10' ceilings, 9' ceilings, 8' ceilings, 7'6" ceilings and believe it or not 6'8" ceilings. (The 14' and the 6'8" were in the same apartment. They divided the height in half with a loft area. The 14' was main living space, and the 6'8" was the kitchen, a dining area and closets and a bathroom. The 14' was nice because of the Greek Revival detailing, but other than that was a bit too high for my comfort. The 6'8" was not so great...but those are extremes). The 10 and 8 were in one apartment and they both had their benefits. The 8's were the bedrooms and bathrooms, those were fine. I can tell you from living in a building which went 7'6" English basement, then 14, 12, 10, 8 on the way up, that a lot of people don't have a great sense of 6-12" increments over 8. Some people can't tell the difference between 8 and 9. Some can tell the difference between 8 and 9 but not 9 and 10. Over ten and lots of people have no clue. One of my neighbors who lived in the 14' apartment kept saying it was almost 18' (He was thinking the lofts were 8 with a bit over a foot in between, not under 7 with 8" in between...no clue really). ----- I think whats happening now is that as houses get more complex with a lot of rectangles stuck together, they are creating "open concept" that still are made up of complex boxes stuck together in their middles, bleeding into perimeters that 1) go off in every direction and 2) create a bunch of smaller spaces in their own real and assumed boundaries (because we still try to assign rectangular boundaries to complex open shapes) . These smaller footprints end up having awkward proportions because they are topped off by high or multi leveled ceilings. The new construction in many neighborhoods here is built on 12-13 foot lots. The older two or three story houses are 9/8 or 9/8/8 with the first floor a step or two above the street. The the new ones are 6 steps or so above the street. 9ft. basement half above the street/10 ft./9ft./9ft/ and they loom above the street and the other houses in sharp narrow 'fingers'. And the inside rooms are toaster slot proportions.