I vote for removing the soffits, too.

One way to deal with the existing crown is to have it carefully removed during demo and then put back up above the new cabinets, as shown in the following photos.

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Here's one with molding very similar to what you have.

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Remove the dental. Run your new cabinets up to the ceiling and crown with same wood -- as shown above. Wall up the 'pass though'. (I don't think I've ever seen one over a range. Don't you want an exhaust fan there?)

I only use my ceiling cans when I'm washing the kitchen floor! I use the under-cabinet lighting all the time. However...I have a huge window over my sink and there is light from French doors in the breakfast room.

You are fortunate indeed not to have HVAC in the soffits like we had. Our contractor worked miracles to change venting in order to remove the soffits and run new cabinets up to the ceiling. I am so glad he did! It opened up the kitchen and gave me much needed storage. For us it was worth the cost.

You know your budget, storage needs, and your priorities. Jillius's picture and suggestion of trim treatment is very nice.

Get rid of the dentil molding. It's Way too fussy. Get rid of the soffits too.

Thanks for all the advice! Yes, we do have 8" foot ceilings. Our main goals are to simply update this space and bring it into 2015. The layout works for us. We love the pass through. We don't need the extra storage at all. Simply want to replace cabinets, get new countertops, hardwood the floor, paint walls, tile backsplash. We'll be keeping our appliances. We love our friend's kitchen that just got redone. Different type of space with their tall ceilings but we love the soft tones and simplicity of it. I'm trying to imagine these cabs with our dental molding running in between our two walls of cabinets with the way these our trimmed out up top. We got a really good price on these exact cabinets. They are colored 'pearl' (off white, soft cream), has some glazing.

Here's another pic of the doors of these cabs. Are they too busy for our space?

Are you installing a range hood?

No. We really don't want one or need one. The vent line is there above to access it in the soffit if we were to need it in the future.

You aren't afraid of steam, etc. messing up your new cabinets?

Cabinets, counters, floors, backsplash are a huge investment. It seems like a missed opportunity to not consider updating the space's function.

Wellll.... that's something to consider. Thanks for the advice. We obviously have no clue what we're doing! :) Thankful for this forum to help us with our 'blind spots'.

I'm certain a future buyer will want an exhaust fan *with lights* over the range or cook top. Remember, you will lose those soffit lights over the range.

If anyone reading here has ever seen a pass through over a cook top, speak now or...oh, you know the rest. I suppose you could move the range and keep your pass through. What's on the other side of it? I see you DR is behind the wall with the fridge.

Wait! You say the exhaust fan vent is IN the SOFFIT? Where does the vent exit the house? Do you have a second story? Does a vent have to run across the house? Perhaps you have a wall fan in the kitchen to exhaust cooking odors?

This is sounding like a complete gut redo to fix some major issues

And I wouldn't put Chinese cabinets in it either. I don't care what price point the home was. It deserves better. And a vent! I can't imagine having a vent pipe and no vent. That's just cringeworthy.

I am in the lose the soffit camp. It will be so nice to have the taller cabinets. I'm sure there is a way to blend the moldings to look good like in several of the photos posted.

I know know this was not your question, but I have a personal (horrible) experience with my painted cabinets being ruined from improper venting. I would strongly, strongly advise putting in a range hood if you are planning those lovely painted cabinets.

I realize you don't want one or feel you need one. I used to feel the exact same way. I only had those pathetic, crappy, little under cabinet range hoods in the past. I never bothered turning them on because they were so annoyingly noisy.

I would occasionally look underneath them and be mortified by the disgusting grease build up. For some reason, I didn't think that much grease was getting on the adjacent cabinets. When I noticed it on the cabinets, a good soap and water scrub down would make them good as new. Problem is, I had only had wood cabinets before, never painted. Unfortunately, I have found out the hard way that painted cabinets do not tolerate grease and steam like stained wood. Maybe I have an unusual case, but here is my sob story FWIW....

I finally got my dream...white painted kitchen cabinets! I knew enough to buy a nice powerful range hood with plenty cfm's. The problem, which I didn't realize at the time of purchase, was that my hood doesn't come out far enough to capture steam and grease from the front burners. The front right burner is my 'power burner' that I use the most. It is that side with the most issues.

After only a month or two, I noticed my painted white cabinets around the stove (especially that power burner side) had these itty, bitty circle spots all over the surface of the painted cabinets. I thought, "Oh wow, I didn't expect them to have so much grease build up yet." I immediately got a soapy rag and gently wiped them down like I always have with my wood cabinets. That's weird, still there. I scrub a little harder. I attempted everything I knew under the sun to clean it off. I frantically did an emergency GW research session. After all is said and done, I had to accept the fact, IT IS NOT COMING OFF!!! :-(

At least from afar you don't really see it. But as I get closer and see the spots everywhere, I am totally sick about it. So unless I get a different hood, I now must regularly wipe down the cabinets after cooking in fear that even more damage will occur.

In your case, with out any venting whatsoever, I am concerned that your painted cabinets will be ruined within a couple months like mine. I have a decent brand of cabinets too, not cheap (Schuler). I would hate for you to be heartbroken like me to see your beautiful brand new cabinets permanately damaged. Sorry for the rant! :-)

(Btw, I hope Funkycamper sees my range hood rant, she'd be proud of me! LOL!)

Really had to laugh about the chinese cabinets! You guys are awesome. Ok. So we are definitely reconsidering a vent. Thanks rebunky for the story.... sorry about your cabinets! And yes, there is an exhaust fan IN the soffit (long story). We have a two story house. Honestly, we haven't had any probs with food odors.... we have a fan near the kitchen. And the back door is just a few feet from the stove. I know, sounds archaic. Thank you all again for all the words of wisdom.

It wouldn't hurt to consider taking your kitchen project one step further beyond just making it pretty. If you post your existing floor plan with dimensions, there are folks here (Me! Me!) who would love to try to come up with some floor plan ideas for you.

I echo others' encouragement to include venting for your range when you remodel. I swapped out my 21 yr old pop-up downdraft for a hood (moved cook top from small island to perimeter) and can't believe how much difference it makes. I didn't realize just how ineffective my old pop-up downdraft was until I took down the kitchen valances in preparation for our remodel. The backs of the valances were coated with dirty, sticky grease. Ick!

You could do a streamlined island hood over your range and still keep most of the open feel of your pass-through.

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Another option is to change the pass-through from above your range to both sides of the range, ala how shanghaimom did it in her gorgeous kitchen, finished! Vintage Cream in the City

If you don't want to spend the money on the more extensive renovation that the space really needs, then just paint the cabinets and address the light and call it good.

But I'm in the camp that says if you're going to be doing this, do it RIGHT. Close up the passthrough, lose the soffits, and put in a real vent. Go with American made cabinets that aren't so ornate. That existing house molding is pretty strong stuff visually. Especially for a home with 8' ceilings. Combined with those cabinets....... I'm all aboard with the suggestion to lose that molding. It's too overpowering and bossy.

Wow... shaghaimom's kitchen is gorgeous! That is definitely a pass through work around. Livewireoak... we really don't want to lose our pass through. If i had a blank check, we would tear down the wall completely to the counter height. But I know that would be pricey, plus the upper cabinets we would lose on that wall are the ones we use the most on a daily basis. Never heard our molding being called 'bossy'... but i tottttally get what you're saying! :) Benjesbride: here's a rough sketch of our kitchen layout with dimensions. Would love to see what you can come up with!

Is something here part of an addition or remodel? Is it not original by any chance?

The pass through was added 10 years ago. Everything else in the kitchen is original (layout wise). We only did cosmetic stuff - which needs to be updated again.

Do the stairs go up to a space above the garage or maybe to the exterior? This is such a strange layout.

A better question would be... can you draw a quick sketch of house the whole main floor is organized? I'm curious how the dining/kitchen/living rooms relate.

Those stairs are our back stairs that go up to the bedrooms and the bonus room. We also have front stairs from the foyer.

Here's a rough sketch (not to scale). Our foyer is actually bigger than this chicken scratch drawing but that's probably irrelevant. Upstairs we have 4 bedrooms, 2 full baths and a bonus room over our garage. Plus i couldn't get our 1/2 bath downstairs drawn in right... it's really not hanging out awkwardly in the foyer. The office has glass french doors off the foyer and living room. The dining room has two open doorways.

Rebunky.... that is BEAUTIFUL! Not too fussy up top with the classic simplicity of those cabinets. Thanks for sharing. Definitely earmarking that pic.

rebunky! I'm so proud of you. :) It's still not really a rant but it was a sincere, passionate appeal based on your experience that is probably more successful than my rants. I shall remember that lesson the next time I get on a roll, lol. ETA: I'm sorry to hear about your cabinet issues.

Southern Girl, to add to rebunky's "rant", there was a recent post by someone who was excited to share how much cleaner her kitchen stays with her new, better hood. She said she used to regularly scrub grease build-up off her cabinets and now there is no grease there to clean. It's just a quick wipe for some occasional dust. Others have reported similar results. I don't think we all realize how much smoke, grease and steam get carried throughout our homes (and odors, too) until we don't have that problem anymore.

Now, back to reading up on what's going on with this kitchen.

Lovely kitchen you found, Rebunky!

Southern Girl, can you move the DR doorway towards the garage? If so, something like this would be possible (quick sketch only). Plumbing, gas and venting would stay in place, which helps the bottom line.

The cabinet against the garage wall would face the fridge side and could serve as storage for stemware, etc, with glass doors on the upper cab. Sort of like a mini (very mini) butler's pantry.

HA! Funky I love your rants! Knew you'd appreciate my efforts.

Southern girl, glad you like that picture. I love your bay window nook too btw. With a few tweaks I think you will have a gorgeous and functional kitchen.

Thanks, Rebunky! I'd like to see what others' thoughts are.

SG, some of the dimensions were a bit unclear to me but here's my basic approach. I aimed to keep the plumbing in the same location. I wanted to increase work tops around the sink and the range and have them together in a (hopefully) more functional arrangement.

I think the only structural changes are moving the dining room doorway and moving the pass through a bit.

I don't like the garage door coming in to the middle of the kitchen. If you can sacrifice the back stairwell, you could move the garage door to that location and keep traffic completely out of your workspace.

And a couple ideas if you move the garage door:

I do, Rebunky! And I love the kitchen photo you found with that fantastic moldingm too. Do that, Southern Girl. Seriously.

I like Lisa's and Benjesbride's plans. I think we are on the same page regarding wanting to re-route as much traffic as possible so it's natural to go around your island and not enter the work zones.

Here's my take: If there's room for a door to the DR at the bottom of those stairs, this would give you tons of counter space and storage. The yellow rectangles represent the pass-throughs like in Shanghai Mom's kitchen. I would do there to the dining room as well. Yes, you would have to walk a bit further to get to the dining room but you could use the pass-through to get the food and dinnerware in there so you would be eliminating a lot of those extra steps during set up and clean up. And if you have any last-minute prep while guests are being seated you can still visit with them.

Your home looks lovely. I love the eating nook and the layout. With just a few tweaks, you will have a fantastic kitchen!

Rebunky, I am astonished by that picture you found. I was looking a pictures of cabinets with dental molding earlier, and I found them all too busy across the board. I wasn't going to say anything because OP can't afford to change it, but the search convinced me that dental molding just doesn't even make sense elsewhere in the home in a place that isn't fairly fancy with high ceilings.

But what you posted looks like eight foot ceilings and looks just fine! I suspect that the secret is that the walls, molding, and cabinets are all painted the same color, so the detailing is softened/obscured slightly and is not so "bossy" as someone else called it earlier.

I actually recently saw this gorgeously ornate Victorian home painted completely and uniformly white on the outside, and I remember lamenting the the paint job -- you couldn't see the awesome moldings very well.

But here, the same effect is to the benefit of the room!

I just want to personally thank ALL of you for all your advice. Can't believe you guys would take the time to help with our little ole kitchen. We love it - warts and all. But we totally understand that it needs some help!

Unfortunately, the idea about putting the garage door at our back stairs probably won't work. We use those stairs 90% of the time to access all of upstairs. And moving the dining room door to the bottom of the front stairs won't work because there's a huge closet under those stairs that we use as an 'overflow' pantry for extra paper towels, cereal, water bottles, etc. I so apologize for forgetting to put that in my drawing!

I'm intrigued about the idea of moving our pass through over. We really do like the open feel that pass through gives us to guests in our living room - and at the time it was put in, we had toddlers i needed to keep up with while i was cooking!

Thank you all again for everything. Brutal honesty and all! I've learned so much here in just a day!

Before you eliminate the idea of putting the garage door where the stairs are, think about the opposite... if you had a 9' range wall and an 8' island or 11' peninsula with no traffic between them, would you move the garage door between those counters to add the 2nd stairs?

Southern Girl, if you run your cabinets to the ceiling, and are mindful of increasing storage space in a new layout, you won't need the overflow pantry.

I remodeled my 10'x11' U-shaped kitchen two years ago. Previously, we had shelving in the laundry room for overflow, stashed things like my mixer and bread machine in the sideboard in the dining room, and stacked cases of beer and pop on the floor next to the fridge. In my new kitchen, there is room for everything - with room to spare! So don't discount some out of the box thinking - it doesn't have to be the way it is now - it can be better!

Question: When you come in the back door, is the door to the dining room ahead of you or the front staircase?It's unclear from the drawings.

I was trying to keep a clear walkway from dining room to back door, but if the back door faces the stairs I think I prefer the plans above that move the dining room entry to the garage side of the kitchen.

Southern Girl, can you move the DR towards the garage as I suggested? I read your post more than once but I don't think you answered that question, which I posted above.

Could you please draw your entire first floor layout accurately and to scale on graph paper where 1 square = 1 sq. ft.? Please label as many things on it as possible (overflow closet, etc.) And include window locations. More pictures of the space as it is now is also helpful.

The more information we have about the space, the better and more relevant our suggestions will be. Otherwise, you are going to spend a LOT of time explaining why things won't work because only you know the true lay of the land, and we are just shooting in the dark now.

Thank you all! Sorry been gone all day. Will update later and answer questions.... I'm overwhelmed with how willing you all are to help! Thank you! :)

Hello ladies, sorry for not getting back to you all. Life got busy here. Was wanting to know what you all thought about this plan we're thinking about for our kitchen. It involves taking out the dividing wall between the kitchen and LR, moving the stove and surrounding cabinets, actually getting a vent, and making the island a lot longer.

Here's a house near us with an identical floor plan. They did almost the same thing, except they put their stove where our pantry is and created a pantry where we want to put our stove. We are learning toward the plans on the drawings above because it would give us MORE counter space on either side of the stove (21 inches). Whereas if we put our stove where they put it, the counter space is much smaller. But the overall look is GORGEOUS and such a nice solution to this space.

That does seem better, but the doorways in the middle of everything are still really hamstringing having the best kitchen possible. There's almost nowhere were you can put a stove where through traffic is not encouraged to go past it, which is a safety issue. And having everybody walking through your work space is simply an "I want to to throttle my family" issue.

If you do this, make the island at least a foot less deep. The aisles look too narrow, especially on the seating side of the island.

I am in the camp of loving the dental molding. My contractor convinced me it was too much (I guess that is equivalent to bossy :) I have regretted not having it done. When I opened your picture - my 1st thought was ohhh I am green eyed with envy.

Jillius, I understand what you're talking about with the doorway. The door in the drawing between the stove and fridge was accidentally drawn in... we have an open doorway there that leads to the dining room. And it will remain open. It's a passage way that hardly anyone uses. More traffic comes from the backstairs into the kitchen or from the living room area.

Hi southern girl, welcome back!

I think that is a great idea to open up the whole wall. I like the open concept family room/kitchen/nook with the separate formal dining.

I wish the dining room doorway wasn't in smack in the middle though. I think funkycamper had an idea to move the doorway. Is that still a no go or could we play with that thought a bit?

I also wish the garage door entry could move where the pantry door is instead by the stairs. Could you get rid of the existing pantry closet and have a row of pantry cabs like where your neighbors have it?

If those two doors could move, you would have a nice big stretch of counter in an L shape with nice size island. The stove could go on the longer wall to the right of pantry cabs. Just a thought! :-)

oh yeah and guess fridge on that side with pantry?

Here are some drawings with the dining room doorway moved over. This creates a continuous space down the wall from the stove. Love this idea so much.

I like the door move! I can totally picture prepping while looking out that wonderful bay window and chatting with those at the table.

I am not sure, but what if you switched the fridge to the other side?

I was just thinking it might be nice closer to the family room so people could get a drink or snack without cutting through the isle bothering the cook or else have to go all the way around the island.

A microwave drawer on that end of the island might be convenient near the fridge and sink.

Also it looks like the dishwasher is directly across the isle from the stove and that could cause a problem.

What is the dimension of the isle way between the stove and island? I would recommend at least 48". Mine is 53" and it is sooooo nice to have space!

Oh and I'd also consider switching those cabinets to all drawers. I keep my pots and pans in a 36" 3 drawer stack with the skinnier top drawer used for my spices. It works great.

Best wishes and keep us posted on the progress.

Btw, did you decide whether to keep the dental molding?

I would carefully remove the dentil (not dental) molding and take out the soffits.

Then, install cabinets with an extension board above them to reinstall the molding and make it continuous again. The doors you showed are too ornate for the dentil molding (in my opinion, anyway) and those ornate grooves are dust and dirt collectors.

Moving the door makes a better workspace. But, I would put the frig on the other end of that run, so kids getting ice and snacks don't have to go through the cooking zone.