Check out jgarner's hood. She covered the ductwork with drywall. Looks really nice.

jgarner's kitchen

Hope you don't mind, jgarner. I've been admiring your kitchen for months!

Thank you! Jgarner's method of covering the vent looks really nice. I'm going to show my contractor a picture and hopefully between the two of us we'll come up with something that I can live with.

I have your exact situation, but with a 11' ceiling, I felt it was crucial to go with a chimney style hood. A freestanding stove/hood accented by 2 windows is a very dominant feature & I think it may look weird to have the hood just 'stop' in mid air & turn to drywall. Maybe if your hood, cover, & wall are all the same color.

If your hood is stainless, maybe you could have a machine shop make a chinmey style duct cover, or perhaps a black 'stove pipe' style duct would work in your farmhouse kitchen. Both of these would keep the proper scale between the windows & not cost an arm & a leg. Any way you do it, we'll be looking forward to pictures.

Antinquesilver -- I mentioned your suggestion to my husband last night, and I think we're going to investigate a local machine shop. He actually knows someone that he thinks can fabricate a piece to match the SS hood. It would be nice to have the chimney effect.

Believe me, I wish we had been able to get the actual chimney-style. As with so many remodeling projects, this one took on a life of its own, and dealing with structural issues in my 150-year-old house meant pinching pennies elsewhere. I'm trying really hard to look at this as an opportunity to be creative.

Broan does make a SS "soffit" piece to cover the ductwork, but I don't know if I'm sold on it. We're also thinking about having our contractor frame out the space above the hood and then plastering over it so it looks like the continuation of a chimney.

Can we see a picture?

Brindimour - my house is also 150 years old & I know how they eat money. Thankfully, no real structural issues, but everything else was at the point of 'fix it or lose it' so I can appreciate your thriftiness. Of the past 19 years of doing restoration, I didn't start on a new kitchen until 5 years ago.

Did you have problems figuring out a way to get the duct work to the outside? We could only install our hood in one place so the kitchen was basically designed around that & the stove. Not the greatest working setup, but it is what it is.

You could always use brick veneer on a drywall box and go for a REAL chimney look...

Just a thought... If you are using the Rangemaster 64000 series, they can vent out the back of the hood as well as the top. I am using a pair of 64000 hoods in my kitchen redo (36 and 42) and plan on venting both into the wall and up.

Derek

Actually, routing the ductwork wasn't a huge problem, though we did wind up having to take it out the gable end of the house. It was thought by all that venting out right behind the hood -- as opposed to the present configuration -- would be counterproductive due to all of the windows sucking the exhaust right back into the house (thanks, though, for the suggestion, Derek).

Our ceilings are about eight-and-a-half feet, give or take, so we're not talking about a huge area above the hood to deal with. It's only just enough of a space to drive me slightly mad trying to make it look right. ;>)

I promise to post pictures when we're closer to finished!

I was not suggesting venting them directly out (given the hood sits between two sets of windows)... Rather into the wall and up. This would hide the ducting in the wall and you can put something else above... Cabinets perhaps (this is what I am doing). I have 7-1/2 Foot ceilings and I will have 6-1/2 feet of 13" open cabinets above the hoods.

One concern about ducting in an outside wall is insulating... If you walls are thick enough you can use expanding blown in foam (netting you about r7 per inch).

Out of curiosity, are you using built-in, in-line or external blowers?

Derek