2 story great rooms are noisy, hard to heat and cool, waste space, and IMO definitely on the way out. My sister has 10 foot high ceilings on her new build throughout on the first and second floor and 9 foot ceilings in the basement; the whole house feels luxurious and airy.

Our entire 1st floor is 10' with the exception of our foyer and our master bedroom. It is very gracious and airy feeling, and I wish often that we hadn't vaulted our master so that it would be 10' like the rest of the 1st floor. Most custom homes in our area are 10' first floor.

Most high ceilinged rooms in todays houses have all the warmth and intimacy of the lobby of a Hyatt Hotel. 12 is still too much and 10 is plenty. And even at 10 pay close attention to window and door head heights.

When we first sat down with our builder, he said, "So you want a vaulted living room?" I looked at him in horror. I said no way. So he said, "So how high do you want your first floor? 12'?" I told him I didn't want anything over 10 feet and that was pushing it. I am getting 10 feet on first floor and 9'4" on second floor. Additionally I will probably drop ceiling heights in the hallways on first floor and maybe also the bathrooms and DH's study.

People are getting away from those cavernous spaces where it's hard to change a lightbulb and where you feel like you're in a public building. Personally I think 9-10' is ideal. High enough so you don't feel the ceilings are closing in on you but not so high that it feels impersonal.

My vaulted ceiling in my current house is 12' at the peak. I wouldn't want any higher than that. It's about a 20' long.

The office in the new house is open to the 3rd floor loft above. The rest of the second floor is 8'. So the office is 10' up to about 14'. It's only 12' wide, and the tall ceiling makes it feel smaller than the guest room that's the same size.

And the main floor is 9', with a 5' wide powder room. It feels like an elevator shaft.

So keep in mind the size of your rooms when you're deciding on heights.

What's the climate where you are building? As musicgale posts, a high ceiling can be useful in a hot climate, but you probably don't want to create a cavernous space where people don't feel comfortably 'at home'.

If I was building today, I would go with 10ft main floors and 9ft upstairs. We have a vaulted dining room with a 12ft peak and it works well for a larger "statement piece" chandelier, so I would probably do that again.

We are going with 9'6" on the first floor, and 9' on second. We can't do any higher even if we wanted to due to town restrictions but I think they are high enough.

Coziness

I'm in the south too and to me it's more area that needs to be air conditioned. :) Plus the other thing is how many steps do you want to walk up? the higher the ceiling the more steps to get to the next floor.

I am doing 9' up and down - for me any thing higher than that I feel like I 'float' in the space - I know this may sound odd - but I want a home to embrace - and with higher ceilings I just feel I am not connected with the space - but rather just 'in it'

Thanks so much to all of you. To answer, the climate here is very hot and humid.

Same in my area. I'm in SW FL and I'm still doing 10 on first floor and 9 on second. Do a larger roof overhang to help shade your inside. I am doing a 32" overhang.

We are doing 10' downstairs/upstairs. But upstairs we have areas where the ceiling drops near the walls in some of the rooms, and lowered on the hallway. We will have cathedral ceilings in the master bedroom and daughter's bedroom, and 2 story ceiling in the family room.

We are also in the south, and for reasons I don't need to bore you with, we are not doing ceiling fans on the main rooms (where I will mostly be). So the higher ceiling height will be a nice feature for us.

Our previous home had 9' ceilings down and 8' up. 9 was ok (for us), but was not excellent. 8 I think is a bit too low.

It all depends on how you live, climate, health, neighborhood style, and personal taste. I think that changing the height here and there throughout the home makes it more interesting, and breaks the feeling of commercial environment.

So just something to think about: If you do the two story great room, make sure the thermostat for the upstairs is not in the shared loft space thats open to the great room. Put the thermostat in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

We did 9' up and main. I thought I wanted 10, until it came time to design the kitchen. I knew I wanted the cabs to go to the ceiling, and ten is just too high for that. I think mine is perfect. Airy, but not too high.

I regret the cathedral ceiling in our guest BR and am glad it wasn't our MBR. Not 'cozy'. I like the one in our 'library' (our TV room), but it's not a large room. It just needed space for the tall archtop window. Our ceilings are fine at 9'. .) I've visited a townhouse with 12' ceilings -- gave me vertigo to go down the straight-shot stairs from the second floor. (Talk about a safety hazard!)

These comments are all helping me sooo much! I was thinking we would do 11 or 12 on first floor, but seems like most of you are happy with 9 or 10 even on the first floor.