So you did a teardown of the old house and built new rather than try to work within the limitations of the existing footprint? Soffits are considered a dated look and most talk around here is how to eliminate them, not how to create them. You might find 1 in 1000 people who actually like theirs. You might keep that in mind for resale down the road as that's a pretty good representation of how the population as a whole feels about soffits. With 10' ceilings, you will have to do a 24" soffit, not a 12" one. Bottom alignment of cabinets is at 54" above the floor, which leaves 66" of space. Subtract out the tallest single cabinets that most cabinet makers are willing to warrant (42") and that leaves 24" for the soffit. Now, you could do stacked cabinets and a soffit, which would look silly. Stacked cabinets with crown molding to the ceiling would look MUCH better than two feet of soffit. Even 2' of open space would look better than a 2' soffit.

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!

Well standard height for A ceiling does not exist, but let’s assume 8ft which is the typical minimum. I would do an 8” baseboard and 5-1/2” crown molding. The larger baseboard will give a more powerful impression.

Donald, the new window and door trim will be just shy of 3 1/4 inches which is all there is room for on some walls where the doors are too close to a corner or cabinet. I read the door and window trim should be narrower than the baseboards are high; is half too great a difference? jewelisfabulous, I have done that. 5 inch seems ok but a little short, 6 inch seems perfect but there are relatively few of those, and 7 seems a little tall but maybe just because of the contrast to what we currently have. A 7 inch is my favorite profile. Thank you both for your input and I welcome any more.