I was going to post the exact same question in hopes that boxerpups might join in. I have 8' ceilings as well but I am doing 39'' cabs. My designer friend said that either one would work. I am going for shaker style creamy yellow but with a colorful red/orange range. She said if I wanted a little more stainless in the kitchen I should go for it. I think it may be easier for my to install if I am doing IKEA cabinets. (Can't decide)

HI -- Continue with the accent blue on all the soffits . It will look nice and remember the person looking at it will be seated in the chair , so it won't look like it is bringing the wall down . I think it will make the room feel comfortable .

Question, do you really need to cover the top set of windows? As in the smaller ones? Could you inset bottom top blinds in the lower window individually?

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?