Scrappy...In the photos you posted, he is referring to the cabinets above the stove on either side of the microwave. See how the crown molding stops and makes a 90-degree turn before it gets to the cabinets next to it? Just like the 2nd link nkkp posted. We did staggered heights and also staggered the depths (very similar to the cream kitchen in the 1st link nkkp posted), but we still ran into an "issue"...With full overlay cabinets, the cabinet doors on the cabinets that are 12-inches deep hit the cabinets next to them when the open all the way up. For instance in Nkkp's first link, see the cabinet to the right of the angled corner cabinet? When you open the cabinet to the right, its door will hit the angled wall cabinet bc the hinges open more than 90-degrees. To fix this we could have (1) avoided full overlay styles, (2) included a spacer between the cabinets, which kind of defeats the look of full-overlay styles, or (3) get hinges that will stop at 90-degrees or just slightly less than 90-degrees so the hinge stops the door, not the cabinet next to it. Other poster have put those clear bumpers in inconspicuous placed to cushion it. We are currently on a search for different hinges and hope that solves our problem. Just wanted to point this out...I am sure we will get used to it, but it is kind of annoying.

Here's a photo of my cabs. They're staggered height and depth as others have mentioned. One thing I'd point out in my photo - you can see that the cabs aren't staggered randomly. The higher/deeper cabinets are the ovens, hood, and corner cab. So it looks like the different heights are serving a purpose rather than purely decorative. I think this gives the varied heights and depths more of a form following function look.

(Yay! Just saw that you aren't going with staggered heights. I was working on my post when you posted that so I didn't see it until after I posted.) If you're plan is to add crown and fascia above the cabs, then definitely don't do staggered height cabs. We have 9' ceilings, 46" upper cabs and 8" of fascia and crown above (we were able to do fully custom cabs this time around). We used to have 42" cabs with open space above. What a PITA to climb up on a ladder to dust up there! When we built, I thought that we'd decorate the space above but it proved to not be tall enough to make anything up there not look like we just threw something up to get it out of the way. "Before" "After"DH and I think our ceilings look higher with the cabs ending at the ceiling, not short of it. And I'm delighted that I'll never have to clean above the cabs ever again.The floor plan you posted shows a kitchen desk but your photos show either a door in that same location or empty wall. From what you wrote, it sounds like you'll won't have a door but will have cabs in this area. Will those cabs be a kitchen desk? Pantry closets are relatively inexpensive to build. Maybe this tweak is possible without affecting your bottom line? Here's how the fridge/pantry area would look: Your kitchen would feel larger without that diagonal pantry corner. (We eliminated our corner sink and I can't get over how much more spacious that area feels). I also swapped the location of toilet and sink in your powder room so that when the door is left open, you see the sink, not the toilet. You can get the same effect by flipping the door to hinge on the other side. If you can't afford to add drawers to your base cabs, at least opt for ROT (Roll-out Trays). We added ROTs to all our base cabs when we built our home more than 21 yrs ago and we were so glad we did that. I hated rooting around to find things in base cabs in our 1st house. That said, I would personally find other ways to cut costs in my home in favor of drawers. (We opted for vinyl floors and laminate counters instead of wood floors and tile counters so that we could add items that would have been cost prohibitive to change later.) One thing I note as lacking in your plan is a place near the garage door for shoes, backpacks, coats, sports equipment, etc. IOW, a mudroom. Do you have a need for that kind of space? If so, here's another slight tweak that provides that type of storage. This tweak may also be cost effective (less counter for one). Here's how that may look (just the bench and storage section): If the closet in this area is for family, not company, then moving it to the top area would be a good idea, IMO. The one downside of the kitchen plans - and your plan, too, for that matter - is that it doesn't follow the normal progression for making meals, which is fridge, sink, counter, range (Looking for layout help? Memorize this first). So I did one more tweak to correct that. As I wrote above, pantry closets are inexpensive to build so they provide great storage at reduced cost compared to cabinets. Yes, this is changing things around from your builder's plan (and if he's a mass builder, tweaks aren't always easy to do) but it might be cost effective because you'll have fewer cabs and less counter. If your fridge is standard depth (SD), you can request that the cabs on the sink run be pulled out from the wall and 30" counters installed so that the counter dead-ends into the side of the fridge cab. Here's an example of deeper counters on the sink run in a kitchen created by a GWer in the past (no longer active on the forum). This is all more feedback than you requested so I realize that you may not heed any of it and that's okay. It's your kitchen, your money. But at this point, IMO, it's always a good idea to look at all options because, once completed, it's pretty darned expensive to improve things, as I know all too well since we recently remodeled to correct the dysfunctional aspects of our kitchen.

Agree with Sophie. That bump out of the cabinetry over the range for the microwave would impede cooking IMO. I know I would bump my head on the microwave with it sticking out that much further (6" additional, right?). I don't know what your kitchen looks like, but there are numerous other better functioning locations than OTR. Here are a few ideas: ^next to the range but not blocking use or access to the entire range top ^In its own quick prep station away from the main cooking areas of the kitchen ^near the fridge completely away from the range.