8 Inch Crown Molding Kitchen Cabinets
Synopsis: What do you do with the space above the cabinets when a kitchen ceiling is 10 ft. tall? You can leave the space open as display space, you can add a set of short cabinets with glass doors, or you can do what trim carpenter Gary Striegler describes in this article: add a decorative frieze. This solution looks great, requires little cleaning, and is inexpensive. In a sidebar, Striegler shares a pro tip: gluing a 2x nailer for the crown when the ceiling joists aren't perpendicular to the crown. In a second sidebar, he explains how to cut crown miters on the flat for both outside and inside corners.
When I started building, ceilings were 8 ft. tall. In the kitchen, a clunky soffit dropped down a foot above the cabinets, limiting them to 7 ft. in height. When ceiling heights grew to 9 ft., kitchen cabinets grew another foot or so to about 8 ft. Who couldn't use the extra storage? But that was the limit for kitchen cabinets, because close to no one can reach higher than that without a ladder. Still, in my market, ceiling height continued to grow to about 10 ft. What do you do with the space above the cabinets? One solution is to leave it open as display space. Of course, that adds costs for lighting and display items, never mind the extra dusting.
In response, some of my clients asked about taking their upper cabinets all the way to the ceiling, which at least minimizes the dusting. But just growing the upper cabinets by 2 ft. would put the proportions way out of balance. Plus, manufacturers don't want to warrant a door that tall. One solution was to add a set of short cabinets with glass doors. That cuts way back on the dusting, and the extra row of cabinets looks great. However, it can add several thousand dollars to the cabinet budget. I needed a third option that would be less expensive than adding cabinets and involve less maintenance than open tops. The solution turned out to be adding a decorative frieze above standard wall cabinets.
The whole assembly is relatively inexpensive to build, consisting merely of a flat frieze board that supports crown, panel, and bolection molding. It looks great, ties into the kitchen crown molding, and needs little dusting. It took my lead carpenter and me a bit over a day to build the frieze for the kitchen shown here. Kitchens vary, of course: Ceiling height, cabinet height, style, and finishes will affect your final design. Because this custom kitchen was later painted on site, the frieze ended up blending seamlessly with both the room and the cabinets. If you use prefinished cabinets, you can get from most manufacturers finished plywood and moldings that can be used in the same way.
From Fine Homebuilding #244
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8 Inch Crown Molding Kitchen Cabinets
Source: https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2014/05/14/crown-molding-for-kitchen-cabinets