I like your Houzz inspiration. I think it looks good because they've used a wide crown molding to minimize the blank space of the soffit. Would that work on the sink wall soffit too? Then I'd use a chimney hood with a wide chimney. Some are just too long and skinny, and that's going to be accentuated by your tall and narrow cabinets--three in a row! I'd also bring the window treatment up to the crown as shown in the photo, though I bet your soffit interferes with that. Or I'd add the large top molding on the window as shown in the photo with the red range. You want to create the illusion of taller windows. I think all that brings a cohesive look to the soffits, windows, cabinets, and hood. I wonder if someone with great spatial abilities could find a way to make both walls look like they were designed as a whole. The Home Decor forum might be helpful with that, but maybe moreso the Remodeling and Building a Home forums, which have some really talented posters. Post everywhere! You've been struggling with this a long time!

Thank you both for chiming in! It seems OK in my brain, but the house isn't built yet, so it's hard (even with design software) to truly appreciate the space. We are trying to fit full size fridge, full size freezer, slide in range, dishwasher, microwave and trash pullout into the space, plus an accessible sink, so there isnt much space left for items in the lower cabs, so putting in as many uppers as possible seems the better option to me. We could possibly put in a tray ceiling, or some sort of soffit around the top, but that seems wasteful. I do love crown, Mags438 - do you have any pics of your kitchen? I'd love to see it. Thanks!

On top of the soffit display beautiful fake greenery or bright colored collection of ornaments or dishes. Our daughter did this and it is beautiful. Such as large vases, bowls, plates standing up etc.

Thanks all! Yes, I had previously considered ci_lantro's idea of adding some wall behind the top cabs, but was worrying a lot about the uppers sticking out too far over the lowers/counter, since IKEA uppers are already 15" deep instead of standard 12" -- so I would then only have 8" of lower countertop that doesn't have upper overhang over it, which seemed like it might interfere with work-ability? (Has anyone done that? I tried to google at some point before - but never landed on the 'right' words to find anything that matched what I meant.) "Extending" the full wall behind the cabinets assumes a 2" bump from the original wall, by mounting 2x2s (1.5" thick) plus 0.5" of plywood, to have a consistent backing totally covering & protecting the electrical - and also strong enough to be able to structurally support the cabinets and everything in them. I guess best case is 1x2 strips + plywood taking that to a total 1.25" addition/bump -- but not sure if 3/4" thick before getting to the plywood will be enough to fit the wiring as it's not quite "perfect" against the wall -- until we tear more down and really get up in there. Right now we have 12" deep cabs over 25" of counter depth, for a full 13" of unobstructed workspace on the counter depth. I like the idea of the deeper uppers with IKEA for more storage - but have a feeling that extra 3" is about the extent of what feels reasonable for the counters below? So normal cabinets have 13", while IKEA standard is 10" of unobstructed-height working depth. We'd be taking that to only 8" -- or best case 8.75" if 1x2's work. Thoughts?