>>It's interesting that there's crown molding on the columns and a lot of detail on the wall, but no crown in the kitchen. Is there crown molding elsewhere in the house?Oh my, have you hit on a sore subject. Crown molding was only included in the formal areas and master bedroom. They also crowned no sloped ceilings. Adding crown to other areas was $250 per "room". $250 now, not so much. 20yrs ago when we're building a house and running out out money, it was. Crowning just that hallway and the adjoining family room cost $500 because it counted as 2 "rooms" even though it was only as much crown as a bedroom; the exterior wall is sloped so the family room is really only 1/2 crowned (one wall not crowned and open on one side). I didn't crown the kitchen because the only wall that would have received crown is that single wall (because again, the outside wall is sloped), and it would have cost me $250. Don't think so. I did the crown in my office myself (come on -- a box) along with the sloped ceilings in the formal living room. If *I* can do it, why in the heck couldn't a carpenter? New cabinets will go up to the ceiling in the kitchen. They put tile crown where I cared in the master bath when it was remodeled. What I should have done was made them crown the hallway to the bedrooms just to punish them. It has so many compound angles it would make any carpenter cry.

I want to echo Weed's caution about being sure on code compliance when having your vent going out near that window. Last year, when I was doing a re-routed of the vent on my range hood, the local building inspector happened by. (We are on pretty good terms so there was no compliance issue.) I asked him about the rules and got a long dissertation as he handed vent tubing up to me. The gist of it was that the rules for range hood vents are different than for those that directly vent gas appliances (say a water heater power vent). There is some discretion when it comes to venting from a range hood over a gas stove. How far the vent has to be from an opening window also varies with whether the vent is above the opening window, at window level or below window level. I was told the vent that is above an opening window can be closer than one at or below window level. BUT, you want to be sure that, if you open the window while the hood is running, it won't be sucking in the vaporous stuff that was just blown out the vent.

I think other are saying to possibly use rectangular "inside" the wall behind this cabinet that is between your kitchen and DR. If that is the case, I do not think that will work or is necessary. 1st you would have to bend/transition to get that into the wall cavity. You want to eliminate bends as much as possible if you can. Not to mention you will have to take a nice chunk out of the back of the cabinet to accomplish this I would think. Not to mention I think you need something like a 5x12 rectangular duct (narrowest) for the same cubic foot of air movement for an 8" round (according to charts I have seen on the web). This will not fit in the wall. If I am looking at the 2nd photo in your attic correctly, you are saying on the right side on the photo, above the electrical junction box, that is mounted on the joist, is where the hole is located. There is another joist behind it that is the attachment point for the DR ceiling Drywall. There is block on top of the joists connecting the two and there also appears to be horizontal blocking between those 2 joists as well. So again not sure anything could be run inside the wall. If the walls are 2x6 then you have a shot. You said you have 6" from the edge of the joist to the front of the cabinet. So you may be able to transition something here within this space. I brought up Oval duct since it has much better/smoother flow, compared to Rectangular. Also, it would be 3 1/2" width and you should have about 3" now, from the front edge of the circle to where the wire was hanging down. Thus, you would only need another 1/2" of cabinet cut to fit the duct towards the front. But the duct would require you cutting wider.

Your situation regarding a vent hood mirrors exactly what we had to deal with. Load bearing wall, finished upstairs bathroom, all the plumbing for the bathroom was exactly where we thought we could run the duct work for the vent hood and 8' ceilings. What we did was run 3X10 duct work above the 36" cabinets, vented horizontally to the outside and then covered up the duct work with moldings. We did have to drop the vent hood from 30" above the stove to 27". I was worried about having the vent hood 27" above the stove, but we were in the parameters of what the installation instructions required. The only thing I would have changed was to have a 9" vent hood instead of an 18" vent hood, then I could have had the vent hood 30" above the range, but you know what, it works like a champ. My vent hood is extremely quiet on low and medium low, but does get louder on med high and high. Whatever you choose to do, good luck. I always tell my DH, if they can put a man on the moon, then something is always doable, with some thought, and a woman!!!! Here is a picture of our install. Here is a picture of the finished product.