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I live in a house (built in the 60's) that has soffits in various places. I'm not exactly sure that everything is technically a soffit but the ceiling is lower and higher in several places. We have soffits in two of our bathrooms and the kitchen with molding and three recessed lights in the center of the elevated part. In the master, the ceiling is at various levels (including a soffit over the vanity area). Our entry way is lower than 8 ft and we have a divider of sorts that comes down about a foot between the dining and living room.
Anyway, we're going to remodel and my wife and I do not exactly see eye to eye on everything (big shock, I know). If it were up to her, she'd take out every soffit in the house. I am not so sure. I think some of them probably should go. If we remove the one in the kitchen we can have full length cabinets which I think would be an improvement. But in other places, I might rather keep them (e.g., the bedroom). She thinks I am just being cheap of course.
Anyway, so here are my questions. Where to people stand on soffits in general? More like my wife or more like me? Second, if we wanted to keep some soffits, is there a particular strategy that would make them look better? Big molding, no molding, something else? Finally, would soffits/no soffits have any impact on resale?
We call them dropped ceilings. You may find that they are dropped due to a beam/girder and is actually a structural component. In the second pic, that's most likely the case. But that doesn't mean that it's true. You'd need an engineer to evaluate it or get a good GC to take a look at it. This is not handy man territory so make sure the guy has a clue. Once you know if it's structural or not, then you can proceed. I'm not a fan of dropped ceilings in a kitchen and absolutely hate canned lights in a kitchen. The dropped ceiling traps heat from cooking and the kitchen will be hot vs the rest of the house. Canned lights are great for focused light but that's exactly what you don't want in a kitchen. I much prefer the newer LED light bars in a recess panel. No heat from the light, the box for it is shallow, and generally it never goes out. You just need to understand that LED light bars put a lot of light to the side of the bar, but not much out of the ends of the bar. Arrange the lights accordingly and you have light like daylight to cook by. Liking a dropped ceiling is a personal thing. I don't care for them myself. They can trap conditioned air, make some rooms hot and others cold. Just not my thing. I vote with the wife as it seems like you have a lot of them.
I agree that at least one of these appears to be structural. Before you decide what to do, you need to find out the nature of your dropped ceilings. There might be ductwork or other stuff in them.
But I do disagree about can lights in a ceiling, kitchen or elsewhere. I’ve had them in two kitchens and I like their light. When we remodeled a kitchen, we got about 8 can lights that replaced an old flourescent ceiling installation, and the difference was night and day. I have them in my present kitchen, and I like them there. If you have enough of them there is no problem with “focused” light.
At any rate you need good information about your dropped ceilings before deciding anything.
OP, if I could afford it, I'd get rid of all of them that I could. The house looks like it's been renovated a few different times, including a wall being removed where your dining table is, and the renovations just look disjointed.
I also think soffits like the ones in your house just look really dated. A house without them won't look dated. I think if you get rid of all of them, if you can, the house will look a lot nicer throughout. It will make it seem roomier, too.
Regardless of what you do, just be mindful that sometimes they are hiding something you don't expect. I'm not saying it would be to code, but I took down a soffit in my kitchen so I could put in full length cabinets and surprise surprise, there was electrical in one. Thankfully, I was taking down the wall as well, so I could move the wiring without a problem.
But you might get more than you bargain for if you start taking down a soffit.
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