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Kitchen soffits are usually installed above your cabinets, closing the gaps between the cabinets and ceiling. The lower ceilings create a cramped atmosphere that can feel restrictive. To create a modern and functional kitchen, removing the soffits can be a great way to create a more spacious kitchen.
What is the purpose of a soffit in a kitchen?
What’s a Soffit? A kitchen soffit is usually a boxy structure built to hide wiring, pipes, or other mechanicals, or to fill the space between the top of your cabinets and the ceiling. Depending on the age of your home they may be very large and perhaps even extend out past the cabinets.
Are kitchen soffits outdated?
Kitchen soffits are out of style, with fewer people retaining these fixtures in their homes and fewer still having them installed at all. Their outdated look often makes a room look smaller, and when building new kitchens, it’s better to free up that space for a bigger and brighter feel.
What does a soffit look like in a kitchen?
Soffits themselves are often described as big, bulky, and box-shaped structures that are built to hide all of the wiring and mechanical components between your cabinets and your ceiling. They are most often seen in a kitchen, although soffits may exist in other parts of the home as well.
What is a soffit on cabinets?
Kitchen cabinet soffits are box-like structures built below the ceiling and above your cabinetry to hide the inner workings of your home, such as wiring and pipes. Soffits may also be used for purely aesthetic purposes to fill the space between the ceiling and kitchen cabinets.
Are kitchen soffits necessary?
A kitchen soffit serves a purpose, which is typically to cover up and hide the necessary kitchen wiring, ductwork, and even plumbing. If there is nothing above the kitchen, there is a higher likelihood that there is nothing critical inside the soffit.
Are soffits popular in kitchens?
Kitchen soffits are usually installed above your cabinets, closing the gaps between the cabinets and ceiling. While kitchen soffits were very popular in older homes, the style has fallen out of favor for many homeowners and interior designers.
What is the space above kitchen cabinets called?
It’s called a soffit, from the French word “soffite,” which refers to the underside of a ceiling. In common usage, however, it’s the word for the enclosed space between the top of the cabinets and the kitchen ceiling.
How high is too high for kitchen cabinets?
Anything over 20 inches above counter top is too high.
How can I hide my kitchen soffit?
Here are some creative ideas for kitchen soffits : Add Moulding Border. Paint them. Add new cabinets. Cover Them With Artwork. Build a window. Place Plants. Cover Soffits with Beadboard. Use Sculptures or Books.
How can I make my kitchen soffits look better?
8 Ways to Deal with Those Awkward Kitchen Cabinet Soffits Fill in the space with trim. Fill in the space with a furr down. Fill the space with trim in a contrasting color. Get some really tall upper cabinets. Add a second row of cabinets. Add a window. Paint the wall the same color as the cabinets. Embrace it.
Can you tile a kitchen soffit?
Tile It. Tile can make your kitchen soffit feel like a more contemporary feature and add interesting texture and color to the room. If you already have a tiled backsplash, you can use the same material for the soffit to give your kitchen a cohesive look.
How much does it cost to remove kitchen soffit?
The national average materials cost to remove a kitchen soffit is $0.25 per linear foot, with a range between $0.24 to $0.27. The total price for labor and materials per linear foot is $8.20, coming in between $4.99 to $11.42. A typical 25 linear foot project costs $205.04, with a range of $124.64 to $285.44.
What is an interior soffit?
A soffit is an exterior or interior architectural feature, generally the horizontal, aloft underside of any construction element. Its archetypal form, sometimes incorporating or implying the projection of beams, is the underside of eaves (to connect a retaining wall to projecting edge(s) of the roof).
Why is my kitchen ceiling lower?
The kitchen typically serves more of a practical purpose than an aesthetic one. High shelves are impractical and the large fluctuation in heating and cooling the space given the activities being performed there warrant as low a ceiling as possible.
How do I know if my soffit is empty?
If you have attic space directly above & no tell-tale grills indicating forced air supply or return, then the odds are very good that the soffits are empty. If you have a second floor above the kitchen & esp. if there is a bathroom above, then the soffit may have a functional reason for being there.
What do you do with empty space above cabinets?
11 Smart Ways to Use the Space Above Your Cabinets Display serving pieces. Use canisters to conceal clutter. Or bust out the baskets. Show off a collection. Display cookbooks. Store your wine. Grow something. Add another shelf.
Is it hard to remove soffits?
If you choose to remove your soffit, cut a hole in the side and look in there first. If it’s empty, there is little difficulty in removing it. If it is full of pipes or duct work, the difficulty lies in rerouting these items. This means either opening the ceiling or the wall behind them to give them a place to go.
What’s the difference between a bulkhead and a soffit?
Soffits describe the area between the top of cabinets and the ceiling. Bulkheads describe the structure that fills in that area. Instead of empty space above cabinets, bulkheads are solid and box-like structures that fill in that wall soffit.
