These pictures are far better than anything I have found. Thank you. We have a cathedral ceiling in our living room now. The problem is that we have 8' ceilings in our kitchen, dining room and family room which form a big "L" shape. We have no other skylights in the house except for what will go into the kitchen. -I am thinking tray ceiling in the family room. It is smaller than the kitchen. It will have a beam as we are removing a load bearing wall to open it up to the dining room. -I was thinking of keeping the 8' ceiling in the dining room as it a smaller space and it would be cozy there. (We also will have a beam between the kitchen & the dining room as we are removing another load bearing wall.) -The kitchen it some what large (14.5'w x 20.5'L) (14.5'x33' if you include the dining room). We only have one small window over the sink on the far end of kitchen. The dining room at the opposite end has floor to ceiling windows on two sides. I would love to get away with no skylights, but my architect said it would help the kitchen a lot. I guess from the opinions thus far, I should go with cathedral and junk the tray. If budget becomes an issue stick with just 8'? Let me know if anyone else has any ideas. This is really helpful!

Yes, I've had that discussion with him many times. But all he does is complain non-stop about how he hates his condo and wants to move back into the house. He complains that he misses the house and then when I invite him over, he declines or comes over and realizes that it is making him sad. But then he is nonstop sad at the condo also. He complains that one thing makes him unhappy and if you take it away or get him the thing he said he wants instead, there is no relief, then that is the new source of his unhappiness. Yes, classic depression but he refuses treatment for it no matter how it is approached. He is just unhappy about all the time, but that is another OT story. I have tried many, many, many techniques and discussions and people and resources to try and help him. He's not bad enough functioning yet that I can take conservatorship of him and if I did that wouldn't solve any of the problems either, he would just be a combative ward with many more issues for me to try and deal with. At least this party was a successful distraction! He has good days and bad days. Also OT, living in the house makes me sad too, but I have to be here at least for a while to finish going through and taking care of all of my mom's belongings as well as any extra baggage of mine, before moving, if we do end up moving. The price of this house can't be beat.

I'm just going to echo what rainyseason wrote above. There are really well-done trays that look fabulous both in the room and in the context of the whole house, and then there a whole lot of shockingly bad, really tragic examples out there too. My gut reaction is that most of the trays in tract builds look pretty bad. That's obviously just my opinion and you know what they say about those. :) However they are over-done right now, so again IMO the poorly done ones are going to really "date" a home in a few years (if they don't already). This is one of those design details that leaves a strong presence in a house. If you really want to do a tray, my only advise is to make sure you're working with someone who really knows what they are doing, lest you end up with that burgundy monstrosity upthread. :)

Partim, I have actually posted pictures of that corner. They were posted 4 days ago, if you look back at my history you will see 3 or 4 of them. One from the kitchen view, that corner to the family room. One of the corner from inside the room, from in front the built-in and a couple from the leather chair and ottoman on that side. There is a step down into the room from behind the recliner which you can not see well in photos. Have not decided on the final layout. I did square up the recliners, one on either side, removed one of the chairs in the room and moved the sofa down toward the tv as an experiment. Not sure I love the setup by the fireplace as it shows cords for the lamp :( the lamp on the there end table can be plugged into the floor, so that is not an issue there.