My ceiling is only about 7'4".

Well, I think to the ceiling is better than leaving 3 inches from the top. Not sure if the ceiling height is as important as the over all size of the room.

I too live in an 80s ranch with 8 ft ceiling in the kitchen (vaulted ceiling in living room and bedroom)
Here is a before and after picture

{{!gwi}}

Before

After

Taking the cabs all the way up made my kitchen look bigger, because it brought your eye up. I also got rid of soffets. My kitchen is small and narrow, and I love the cabs to the ceiling. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to photograph so that you can get the effect. You'll have to take my word for it!

My small kitchen with 8' ceilings -

7'9" ceilings in our 1929 home. Moved from FL and thought ceilings would feel closed in and low after a house with 12' to 14' ceilings but don't have that feeling at all.
Helene

I think my ceilings are a little less than 8' too. Much better than leaving a gap between the cabs and the ceiling.

No pictures to be shown, but I, too, am in a '74 ranch with 8' ceilings. Of course, that varies depending upon the ceiling's sag.

I put up cabinets with the 12" of open space above them and was so bored with them that I've been making, finding and buying 12" cabinets to put on top to make 42" cabs. Some 42" cabs I had found, I put a mullion in and smaller doors on top to make a stacked look.

This topic has been discussed a bunch, so a search is in order. But don't forget to search "stacked cabinets" too, because 8' ceilings always come up. That way you can see many more, lovely pics.

My white and soapstone kitchen with 8' ceilings as well - cabinets go to the ceiling.

We have an 8' ceiling in the kitchen.

Before: cabinets went to ceiling but because there was no moulding, the door tops were very close to the ceiling. That made it really hard to clean the top of the doors (and since they were white, they needed it.)

{{!gwi}}

After: cabinets still to ceiling but with moulding. I prefer having the moulding for looks and functionality / cleaning.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Our ceiling in the kitchen is 92''.
Before:

The ceilings in the downstairs of our older bungalow/cottage were originally 8', but they've all been lowered a few inches, which I found out when I removed part of the soffits in the kitchen. I left part of the soffits just to get the (low budget/DIY) kitchen finished, but I wish I'd taken the time, and made the effort to remove all of them. I posted this pic on another thread today:

The glass cabinets on the right, and the fridge cabinets on the left go to the ceiling, which is a very pale yellowy-green. There's no window in the room, so in the middle of the day it seems a bit cave-like.

Well, that didn't work, so I'll try the new way, and I'll add that we took down part of a wall to make the kitchen more open. I love it!

Wow,
Denali & leela your before pics look like my current kitchen. Matter of fact my stove & MW are next to the door just like yours were. I have never liked it. Is that a skylight? Did any of you guys have textured ceilings? What was the process of switching to smooth?
Lovely kitchens, keep them coming!

Sochi, There's your wonderful kitchen again!!

Mama_goose your picture is missing, and it always such a treat to see your cute place.

All of these kitchens look great. I think an 8' ceiling is just fine for "to the ceiling" cabinets.

Here is my very small kitchen. My ceilings are actually about 8'2":

There are no long photo ops to be had in my kitchen. These are all of my cabinets. This kitchen has always had a small set of wall cabinets on the sink wall, to the ceiling, built in the mid 40's. These are my new cabinets put in last summer. The additional cabinets on the stove wall were never there before. I have a folding plastic step that I put under the sink to use to access the high stuff. It folds to about 2" thick and fits along my sink cabinet side wall very nicely.

So that no one feels too sorry for me, I must tell you that I have a large insulated porch adjacent to the kitchen where my refrigerator sits along with a fairly good sized wall pantry.

Based on the above posts, up to the ceiling is definitely the way to go - either with or without molding depending on your style... Funny, I was so focused on the length and width of my kitchen (or lack there of), that I never considered 8ft ceilings a negative... We went with 42" cabs to the ceiling in our small galley.

We had soffits above our cabinets before. These upper cabinets give me so much more storage going to the 8 foot ceilings.

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.

Hags00: maybe you could do a step crown like I did on my shaker style cabinets. Mine is a 3 inch square crown and a 2 inch square crown but perhaps it could be done with two pieces of 2 inch crown. Here is a close up of my crown? It is still a very simple crown.
{{!gwi}}

Man...you have 8' ceilings?! Lucky. I'd love to have 8' ceilings! Mine are a lousy 92". Sometimes others covet what some consider to be inadequate. ;). (I, too, wish for a higher lid. It's the one big thing that bugs me about this house.)

And I wish I were tall and had curly hair.

Hags, don't really sweat that. Either you step your crown molding, or elevate your appliance garage a bit and put a piece of trim under it. I'd suggest flush with the appliance garage frame, down to the counter.

I would love higher ceilings. The bottom line is that we Ranchers (don't want the cattle) just don't. But as my RLSOG, STBX, GC (thanks, Melissa) used to say, "create the illusion".

Well, I'd say you got your answer. Of all the threads discussing this, this has certainly become the most pic-intensive and I love pictures. Thanks!

This is my old kitchen in my last house. It had 8 ft ceilings.

{{!gwi}}

Badgergirl - yours was exactly the one I saw on here and had in mind for a solution....I really like it!

Our old cabs didn't go to the ceiling. They were 12 years old and I never once cleaned up there. I was afraid to look! Two bachelors lived here before me. When they came down, I had to take a putty knife and scrape off the greasy gunk to donate them.

The top shelf or two of your new cabs will feel like the top of the Matterhorn at first. I really only use the bottom three shelves for storage.

Our almost-done kitchen.

msmagoo-yes, we have a skylight in the kitchen. I put that in about six years after we bought the house (first mini-remodel). It really helped the kitchen not feel so dark and closed in. And with this major remodel we moved the doorway to the entryway over away from the range area.

I have step crown in my kitchen with 8 ft ceilings in our ranch. It was installed by accident as our 1950's house is not level after the earthquake and there was a slight gap between the cabs and the ceiling after we had our cabinets installed. The previous kitchen had soffits which made the ceiling feel much lower.

I love your hood, can you please share the brand and size of hood and stove? Thanks