You could tile them or put on a stainless steel plate. I'd check with the permitting agency in your municipality to be sure it'll pass muster with them though.

Rather than adhering to the customary standard of 18 in. or just randomly picking something different, I think a better way would be to just consider exactly what you want to be able to do - whether reaching higher shelves is more important than storage underneath the upper cabinets, etc. For example, I asked the cabinet maker to install our upper cabinets at 16 inches for several reasons: 1) I am so tired of stretching to reach upper cabinets - and I'm not that short (5' 5")!! My current cabinets (only have 2 of them though - it's a tiny kitchen) are 23 inches (yes, you read that right!) and extend to the ceiling which is 9 ft. Needless to say, it's almost impossible to reach anything other than the first shelf - I can stretch to reach the very edge of the second but usually feel as if I've pulled a muscle afterward - haha. 2) I also wanted to coordinate the height of the cabinets with the windows and do not want the cabinets to reach the ceiling (which is coffered), so was a bit limited - 18 in. would have been slightly too much. 3) I'm not worried about storage space under the upper cabinets because there are so many windows (as well as an island) that there will be plenty of space to use small appliances, etc without running into the cabinets. We don't use anything currently that would be stored on the countertop anyway. 4) As for resale, I would never think of actually measuring the height of cabinets (unless they were REALLY high) and even if I did, it wouldn't prevent me from buying a house (obviously, since my current kitchen is horrible!). I realize that there are definitely people who care about those things much more than I do though, so will just have to take that chance with resale :) Other ideas could simply be integrating a variety of heights (seemed to be trendy for a while to do that), including cabinets that extend down to the counter or have those appliance garages at the bottom.

Deedles-I am so new to this stuff but I'll try to give you the cabinet dimensions. It is a slaller sized U kitchen- so starting on the left is a 12" wall cabinet and 12" base drawers, then 30 inch stove and 30 inch cabinet above, 15 inch upper cabinet, 21 inch easy reach corner cabinet, and then another 15 inch cabinet.Underneath is a 36 inch easy reach base cabinet. Then the 36 inch base cabinet for the sink with window above. To the right of the window is a 30 inch and 15 inch uppers. The 15 inch cabinet has a side access door instead of an end panel. On the lowers is a 36 inch super lazy susan, (part of peninsula), dishwasher, and 18 base drawers. To gain more storage, we also added three 21 inch lower cabinets and a 12 inch corner cabinet on the table side of the peninsula. We had to extend the wall 8 inches to make room for this. We have the table on the eat-in side of the peninsula. That area has an 8 1/2 foot opening into a large 28 x 40 family room. It use to be just over a 9 ft opening but this is where we extended the back kitchen wall. In hte kitchen are between the cooling area and the refrigerator wall is a door that leads into our study/computer room. Hope this helps :)

I still say ceiling.... I come from a family of architects and it just seems so totally WRONG to have a pendant light emerging from something your brain will read as "wall" if it's painted wall color. Pendant light = hanging from ceiling. But I'm not living there, so if it won't bother you, go for it :)