From: 10K Kitchen Remodel
This is somewhat of a controversial topic: Should you tear out the
soffit in an older kitchen or leave it in? We left ours in and
actually added to it for the additional cabinets. We added a
display shelf to it, as shown in the picture:

Are we happy with the choice? Yes. The main reason is the display
shelf idea we came up with. If it were just a plain soffit, I would
have rather had cabinets that went all the way to the 8 foot
ceiling. Here is a picture of it before shelf - not too exciting...
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