Client told me my cabinet layout wasted too much vertical space

I had this guy in Oak Park look at my kitchen plans and say I was leaving six inches of dead space above the uppers. I told him standard practice was 18 inches to counter, but he showed me his old house where they went right to the ceiling. Changed my whole approach on that job and now I measure every ceiling height first. Anyone else get pushback on standard spacing from a client who turned out to be right?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbara_taylor8322d ago

12 foot ceilings in the dining room is the kind of detail clients love to forget to mention until you're already in the middle of arguing with them. Gotta love when the customer is actually right and you just look like the idiot who didn't ask enough questions.

kevin_carr23d ago

My buddy Jim does trim work up in Evanston and ran into this exact thing a few years back. He had a client who insisted on cabinets going all the way up in a 9 foot kitchen and Jim argued it would look top heavy. Turns out the client was right because they had 12 foot ceilings in the dining room and the transition looked seamless once the uppers hit the crown molding. Jim said he ate crow on that one but now he measures ceilings before he even talks about standard spacing. It's funny how one job can completely change your thinking on what you thought was a hard rule.