I've seen a beautiful contemporary kitchen on GW that had "flat" crown molding in a contemporary styling. I wish I knew who it belonged to so I could link to it. It looked great. Sometimes I feel like cabinets without crown need a little something to finish it off...

I DO NOT recommend hanging them higher so it's harder to get to them. Function first!!

With that said, Caligal's kitchen is a good example of how it could really work!@

I did not bring my cabinets to the ceiling (I do have crown molding) and I feel that is one mistake I made. If only for the maintenance, I think it is going to be a pain to have to get up there and clean on top of the cabinets. I am getting too old for that kind of stuff and here I am submitting myself for more work. If I had to do again, I would definitly bring the cabinets to the ceiling. You could get a modern crown molding.

Found this one on FK Blog.

Here is a link that might be useful: contemporary kitchen

We had a soffit built above our 39" cabs as a way to fill the gap and not have to use crown molding. It was originally designed to cover a beam, but after the beam was designed out, we kept the soffit. I have sometimes thought we should have come up with another plan, but I am happy enough with the way it looks.

Even if you are very tall, I think a 20" backsplash would make resale tough. I am only 5-foot-1 and I can tell you that I "do the reach" in every kitchen in every house for sale I have looked at. It's bad enough that I can only reach the bottom two shelves without a ladder...

see mine:

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg1122335510235.html?18

we did a vertical 1.5 inch molding just to match the 1.5 inch light rail. it is very subtle. at first i wanted nothing at all, but it looks balanced this way. ( i think!)

good luck

LC

i think i have what la cuisine has. nothing fancy or textured; just a flat piece to fill in the space below the ceiling.

Caligal, do your cabs go to the ceiling or is there a gap or some other type of molding?

Worried about leaving a gap and having it get dirty up there.

Thanks for the ideas/help everyone.

No crown moulding or otherwise on our cabs. Our KD said it wan't necessary with our contemporary cabinets (flat panel, slab doors). We were just as happy (and didn't have to go crazy trying to find contemporary-looking molding that we liked).

Here's how it looks:

I've since put some decorative stuff on top of the pantry cabs and on top of the fridge cab (though I don't love the stuff on top of the fridge, so that might be temporary!).

I was originally going for a contemporary look with wide shaker cabinets, but at my KD's recommendation (and with an astonishing lack of thought on my part, considering how much I obsessed about everything else!), I did get a traditional crown molding. It definitely took the kitchen style back toward a more transitional look.

When I first saw the crown going up, my immediate thought was MISTAKE! Should have gone for the flat beaded stuff!! But then I fell in love with how architectural it looked... Very happy with it now. (Will be happier once the kitchen is actually DONE.)

{{!gwi}} {{!gwi}}

There are shaker style crown moldings available
very simple or just use a flat molding
You need something to hide an uneven (possibly) ceiling and also to clear the full overlay doors against the ceiling
I agree leaving it open, unless your ceilings are cathedral is a mistake

jax, it is a vaulted ceiling. You cannot see the space well in the picture, but the gap is 4 1/2" at the front (top) of the cabs and 2" in the back (due to ceiling slant).

I suppose it will get dirty, but we are much closer to the ceiling than the original layout.

The dining room cabs has a much bigger space above, but I wanted the 12" deep pantries there.

We have soffets over the L but on the opposite side we opted for a simple crown similar in shape to Charlikin's or so I thought - turns out it wasn't available in our finish and no one told us so I spent my lunch hour chasing down a guy to custom spray moulding to match and will spend Saturday moulding shopping. All that to say I like a minimal moulding if your not going to the ceiling. My Mom's kitchen is more transitional than modern but something seems missing without the moulding (her cabs are in so we have a pretty good sense of how things will look). A KD recommended laying newspaper along the top of the cabs and then all you have to do is ball it up and throw it away and put down a fresh layer.

Soffet sides of the L (note the 2 different depths of the soffets which made it impossible to do anything but use filler)

opposite side where there will be moulding as soon as we find a replacement for the one we were told we ordered but wasn't available

I won't address the crown molding/no crown molding aspect, but I will say a very big NO to raising the cabs & having a higher backsplash.

I have low ceilings, & I raised my cabs so that the CM would go all the way to the ceiling. I have just shy of 19" of backsplash, & although I'm used to it now, I would never do it again.

Mine is contemporary. I have standard 8' ceilings. here is my molding. I LOVE it and I'm not usually a fan of elaborate moldings.

Crown detail:
{{!gwi}}

Overall shot:

{{!gwi}}

Anita

I think whether you use crown to go to the ceiling depends on what type of ceiling you have. If you have a cathedral ceiling or a 9 ft. or higher ceiling, it is fine not to go to the ceiling with the cabs. But, if your cabs are only going to miss the ceiling by a couple of inches, I would use crown to bridge the gap.

In terms of the go-to-the-ceiling issue - I had really wanted my cabinets to go up to the ceiling, but I have this concrete soffit down one side of my kitchen. I have 100" ceilings, so with 42" uppers and a crown molding, I could have made it to the ceiling - but I would have needed to cut away a few inches from the backs of the cabinets to fit around the soffit. Instead, I got 36" uppers and nested them under the soffit... (ended up having to hang them a couple of inches lower to fit, so I'm ending up with only a 16" high backsplash.)

With the crown molding, I've got a few inches open above the cabinets. I wasn't sure I was going to like this look (and I was concerned about how to clean up there), but I actually like it. (I'll let you know how the cleaning goes... ;-))

In any case, I would recommend (along with others here) that you *not* hang your cabinets higher in order to hit the ceiling. My old cabinets were at 20", and it was annoying to get things even off the bottom shelf.