Nope, no one that I know of has ever bumped their head into the deeper upper cabinets. And part of them are over our prep sink where people normally would have no upper cabinets, or would have the upper cabinets raised higher over the sink section. We have 15" deep uppers over our prep sink (which is the sink I use most of the time anyway), 16" deep including doors. It is 18.25" to the bottom of our light rail (20" to the actual cabinet). I have never had an issue with it hitting my head or any other issues. I was nervous to do this over my sink, but went to see a friend in NYC during our build. He had no raised area for head room and there was no issue there either, so that convinced me it would be ok. I don't remember if his were 15" deep, or standard 12" deep. But he is over 6 feet tall. I am 5'3" and my hubby is 5'10". The left & right cabinets are 12" deep and 42" high. The middle two cabinets are 15" deep and 45" high.

E K, after extensive deliberation, we have decided to keep standard height interior doors throughout (6'8"). We are going with higher windows and sliding French doors in rooms with higher ceilings. I ended up deciding that the 6'8" interior doors looked fine and that windows can be set higher than the doors (I looked at lots of pictures and actual houses). I actually drew several walls to scale with the 6'8" doors and higher windows to ensure I would like that look. I decided the 7' doors were an unnecessary expenses and wouldn't look that much different from 6'8" doors. I think the higher windows will bring in more light and help the ceilings to look taller. There is one bedroom where I have one 8' wall that slopes up to 9' and I will have windows on both these walls - that was my trickiest problem. In that room, I've decided to have 6'8" window height on the 8' wall and 7'8" window height on the 9' wall with 6'8" windows. Its not built yet but I hope it looks ok. Below is a house that helped me think through my decision. It has higher windows than doors. In addition, in one room the windows on two walls are set at different heights. I think it looks ok and I think the sloped ceiling in my room will make the varying window heights look even more intentional. [https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-farmhouse-farmhouse-family-room-san-francisco-phvw-vp~2207590[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-farmhouse-farmhouse-family-room-san-francisco-phvw-vp~2207590) I do think you can do 7' doors with 8' ceilings (or 9' doors with 10' ceilings). In fact, I will be doing 8' sliding doors and windows set at 8' in our master bedroom that has 9' ceilings. This room will also have 6'8" interior doors. I can post pictures but it won't be built for several months.

I loved our house with 9 ft ceilings; my present house has 8 ft on the ground floor and 9 ft on the second (where we added a full dormer and I insisted they do 9 ft ceilings). Our house in LA had a 12 ft ceiling in the enormous LR - it was 18 x 40. I agree that it's a matter of proportion. While I would prefer 9 ft ceilings on my first floor, the room sizes of all the rooms are good (DR is too small for my very wide table - ceiling height wouldn't make a difference). Due to no "open concept" my well-sized rooms make the house "live well" so that extra foot of ceiling is probably more noticed by me (a designer) than most people. The fad for these very tall ceilings has come from the open concept movement which involves rooms that look big on paper, but are in fact, rather small due to the lack of walls and floating furniture for traffic patterns. So the builders just made the ceilings higher - far less expensive than adding square footage to the house. And everyone thought he was getting something very grand and very special.

26ft is a very low number. Are you sure about that? Are you building on slab? What is your plan between floors - typical is 18 or 24 inches. With a slab, it really should be 24 inches - for HVAC ductwork primarily. So 12 ft 1st floor, 2 ft between floors, 9 ft second floor is 23ft. That would make for a pretty flat roof. I am used to somewhere around 38ft as a limit - and bumping up against it if memory serves - on a 2 story house. But where you call the "top" varies as is where you call the base. Are there houses in your county with 12 ft ceilings on 1st floor? As far as "shame" you out of something, I don't think being deliberate about a decision is a bad idea. I do think you don't see many 2 story houses with 12 ft ceilings - I have never seen one that I can recall - for a reason. And mind you, I had 11 in 1/2 my first floor. It was designed so the master suite had a few steps to get there separate from the main staircase. And the master suite was above the 11 ft area. We have 9 ft upstairs. You mentioned 8 ft doors. We have 7 ft. Try to imagine your door casing and crown molding. They would have to fit in that 12 inches and not looked crammed. In my area, most grand houses have a decent size crown. Not sure that would look right. I agree that the big transition to 6'8" doors is a bit much also. Curious where you are building because I like to learn about regional trends and I also have my guess and want to see if I am right.