One the one hand, I see why you like the full nine-foot ceiling. On the other hand, I would rather have a perfectly flat dropped ceiling than some of the weird soffits and chases I've seen in this sort of commercial or multi-unit construction. I have seen lots of awful soffits dropped through the middle of rooms, soffits that stop dead in the middle of the wall, soffits on top of soffits, soffits with recesses in them. This apartment at least offers a clean solution. There may not be much control over whose unit ductwork runs through in a multi-unit building either, it may have to do with the position of the particular unit in the building. I occupied a unit where the ducting for three other units' kitchens and baths changed direction requiring a dropped ceiling (from 12'-7'10") in my kitchen. I was able to reroute it when I renovated after a bunch of calculations and such, and I still lost 6" which was less noticeable than two feet. I "get" the whole taller ceiling thing, too, but it's also a matter of proportion. Depending on the size of the bathroom, I tend to think an eight foot ceiling looks more in proportion with the overall size of a smaller room. I think sometimes the ceiling height and what it does is a bit overstated, personally. It's a matter of comparison that causes the issue.

karalouise, Agreed, first of all to get a structural engineer involved to get the proper lumber sizing. You also may not be able to recess the beam if there is a bathroom above. There may be plumbing and or heat ducting in the way. You could certainly do a boxed beam pattern in the ceiling to play off the structural beam, it's done all the time and I think you could be very successful with an 8.5' ceiling. However, you need to be aware of how the beams will work into your upper cabinet layout. Will you do a soffit out of matching millwork so the cabinets bump into the soffit which matches the beams and crown moulding or? One thing you might want to consider is a half recessed/half dropped beam so it doesn't extend so far below the ceiling - maybe only 6" or so. This may be enough to re-route any plumbing or ducting that may be in the floor space. That way, you could still do your 8' high of cabinets with a 1" x 6" trim and crown for the soffit and return that back to the beam and false beams. It can be a lovely look!

I agree on the molding, but otherwise the soffit. It won't look funny if you don't make it look funny. Since you're doing it to meet the cabinet, make them flush and have a pencil molding where the meet. You can paint it the ceiling color to make the room look taller. You could even cove it. You could also leave it open. That's not my favorite, but people do it all the time. You could put lighting on top of the cabinets (behind a small molding) that will bounce off the ceilings. There are a lot of things you can do. What you shouldn't do is drop the ceiling just to meet the cabinets. Why give up the height?

When I was making that choice a drop ceiling was going to be about twice the price of blueboard and plaster (we don't do drywall in residential construction around here), The drop ceiling was also going to give us much less flexibility for dropping chases to a lower height for HVAC, would have cost most of a foot of dearly won ceiling height across much of the basement. I couldn't justify the expense for the once-in-a-blue-moon need to access something above the ceiling. We put access panels everywhere there was anything that required, or might reasonably expect to need access. Ten years later there has been no need to cut a hole for anything-- nor have I needed to use any of those access panels except for the one with the refrigerator water shutoff valve. .