That arrow cracks me up! I didn't notice it the first time by so it was even more amusing when I scrolled back up for a second looks and there it was. Definitely take a peek before deciding they can go. Mine seem to be empty, but they don't even have a ceiling inside. I can see the underside of the floor upstairs! So when they finally come out in the remodel, we decided it would be easier to remove the entire ceiling and reinstall than try to patch the soffits and areas where the wall used to be since we would have to match or remove all the popcorn. The only suggestion I have, and I don't know if this is right or not, would be to match them to the cabinets, and make sure the ceiling is a different shade. That way visually they would be clearly grouped as part of the cabinet space and not a larger sea of white that you have to pick the cabinets out from. If it was all one shade, I think you would end up with cabinet and not cabinet, with the soffits falling into not cabinet, if that makes sense.

Wow, Beth H, some awesome ideas there. You really take so much time to thoroughly research and reply to people's questions. I wish I lived closer so I could hire you. To OP I agree with people's suggestions to live with it for a while. Can't be sure from the photos but the wood of the cabinets looks good. the appliances are new. I do love Beth's black and white suggestions. Yuu can also find (horror of horrors) vinyl stick on mosaic backsplash in your colors. New hardware also goes a long way. Once you live in the space, you will probably find that you want to do something completely different from what you think you might need now and you will be sorry that you spent your money on something that won't be what you want or fit your needs down the line. Pick an accent color (from the rest of your house) or a rustic theme and group some attractive accessories from Homegoods (maybe glass ornaments) on top of the dust collectors, I mean cabinets, to brighten up the space. Keep the theme of it cohesive throughout and place in groupings not just random ornaments Throw in a few white pieces so that the white appliances are incorporated. Put down a non slip runner. Maybe, even go bold with color in warm tones. h

It looks like the duct running above the window is only feeding a single register, is that right? If so, there may be a way to replace that larger duct with two smaller ducts, or install an in-duct fan in a single smaller duct to provide the same airflow through a smaller diameter duct. If the duct and the sofit could be reduced to a 7" x 7" size, you would be able to put furring and crown along it to match the 7" furring above the uppers. What room upstairs is getting that heat? If is is a bathroom, you could consider in floor heat or some other heating option and take out the duct entirely. Also, if it is a larger room, is there a reason that the register has to be above the window? Could the register be above the point where the duct run goes vertically up the wall? Could the duct run all the way to the ceiling of the second floor and provide heat from above instead of from below? Drywall and duct modification should not be a huge expense after the fact, but if there is a way to heat that room without the register in that location and do it now, I would strongly suggest it. Otherwise, have them at least take out the portion of the soffit where the duct is missing and make the soffit only as wide as the duct, not the full 12", so you have less to repair later.

Hi, Thank you for your very detailed and thoughtful response. First, some information on me and my mindset regarding updating this kitchen as a whole. My husband and I have renovated quite a few kitchens, bathrooms, etc ourselves over the last 30 years and we are quite familiar with the concerns about the cabinetry you brought up. I have replaced old, dated cabinets with high quality units in previous kitchens and bathrooms and I have refaced cabinets. I have also refreshed those same rooms on a shoe string by reusing what's in place and updating the look creatively while saving a ton of money. I plan on helping this particular kitchen work better for us for as little money as possible, although I know I will need to spend more money than I would like to on certain areas of concern. The house we are currently in is a very dated 1970s house we purchased two years ago in order to downsize and to use as a project for our retirement. We like remodeling and building things, it's fun. The house needs lots of work and we are slowly addressing each issue based on importance. If this were an upscale house in a different neighborhood, I would completely gut the kitchen and start from scratch. However, I can't see spending thousands and thousands of dollars on this particular house. We may enjoy the kitchen if we did a complete gut job, but I doubt we will ever get that kind of money back out of it regardless of how nice we make it. So I need to take a different approach here. The Soffits My main question and concern in this post is regarding the soffits, particularly the big, intrusive soffit over the windows. The soffits house only electrical wiring used for the soffit lights so removing it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I am waiting for estimates from a few contractors and if I think it's worth it to have them removed, I will. In years past, we would have already done this ourselves but our older bodies no longer want to do this type of large, dirty work. If I can find an interesting and attractive work around that visually makes some sense out of it, I will. This is why I posted my plea for help. RIght now the soffit is just a big, clunky light holder. The fact that it stops in the middle of the windows is what bothers me the most about it. I am sure they stopped it there to line up with the end of the cabinets to the right of the sink, but it is awkward and overpowering. It is the first thing you see when you enter the kitchen. The Cabinets While I am not thrilled with the appearance of these cabinets, I would like to work with them. These are not high end cabinets, but the boxes are made out of plywood and they are sturdy and sound. They are better quality than the inexpensive cabinets you can buy today and better than some of the mid-priced cabinets, so I would need to really spend a large amount of money to get mid/high end cabinets in order to make an improvement. I am happy with the general layout of the kitchen cabinets so I don't feel the need to reorganize with the exception of the area to the right of the sink base cabinet which has a tiny 6" countertop. More on that later. The other reason I would like to keep the boxes is that I want to add as little debris as possible to our landfills. As I've gotten older, I am much more aware of just how much our society throws away and I have trouble throwing something out if I can make it beautiful, which I believe is possible here. One of our fun retirement projects we have planned is to reface the cabinets. We have the ability and will have the time to custom create our door fronts to fit our existing cabinet boxes. This is another reason I don't want to replace the cabinets. Prior to the refacing we plan on replacing the cabinet hinges and drawer glides and we may even convert some of our lower cabinets to drawer bases near the stove. Time will tell if we still feel this is important when the time comes. If we remove the soffits, I plan on building open storage shelves/cubes that match the width of each cabinet below. These will be lit and will extend to the ceiling and finished with a matching crown. We have a collection of art that I would like to display. Yes, I know that I will need to dust these, but I'm ok with that. Vent/Range Hood Funny you should mention adding a range hood. We absolutely will be doing that soon and it is one of the reasons we want to remove the soffits. Due to there being no attic above the stove, we have to remove the soffit over the stove at the very least in order to install it. We plan on doing this in the near future. I have done this in the last 4 houses I have lived in and renovated because we love to cook and need a hood in order to remove the intense cooking smells to the exterior. Kitchen Sink Part of the reason we want to address the huge soffit over the window is that we will be adding base cabinets (drawers) to the right of the sink terminating them at the right edge of the windows. Currently, there is only 6" of countertop next to the right side of the sink which disturbs the flow of stacking and rinsing dirty dishes before putting them into the dishwasher on the left. Not only does the shallow, 1970s sink splash water everywhere, but it seems to direct water out and over the 6" countertop and onto the hardwood floors. Temporarily we placed a piece of furniture under the window which has a finish that is very close to the cabinets and is the height almost matches the countertop, but water still has a way of getting in between the two and drenching the hardwood floors. We did this to have a place to stack dirty dishes before rinsing and washing, but it's not a great solution. Ideally we want to extend the countertop out to the right edge of the windows with drawer bases below. Luckily, our sink base is 42" so we plan to install a 36" single bowl sink that is deep enough to wash our small dogs. I haven't yet decided if it will be a front apron sink or not. Whether it is an undermount or a drop-in sink will depend on the countertop we decide on. Finals Thoughts So, I am still looking for ideas on making the monster soffit look intentional or for a way to minimize it's bulk. If you have any creative ideas on how to deal with it, I would love to hear them. I hope this gives you a better understanding about my project/s. Thank you for your input.