Hi,sorry I do not have any pictures but I remodeled a house several years ago and did the recessed lights in the same setup. I painted a mural inside to go with a little handmade mosaic countertop I did, I also trimed the ceiling out with simple crown. I got lots of compliments on it. I say go for it...it's fairly easy to do but bad on the neck.

Here is a before and after of our 1980 California home with the fluorescent lights and plastic panel. We "upgraded" our solid plastic panel to a grid panel some time in the 80s, but the ugly factor was still there nonetheless.

{{!gwi}}

{{!gwi}}

Jodi-

Here's mine from a house that was recently sold. The light is from Ikea and the arms can be bent to fit the space. The lights can be adjusted to point light where you need it.

I don't have any photo's, but in one house they ran a large crown molding around the bottom edge placing some up-lighting hidden behind it. Then they added some recessed cans around the lower soffit ceiling. In another house they just cleaned it up, and added a small crown around the top with some recessed cans. In our case, we bit the bullet and ripped it all out right up to the ceiling joists, returning the entire ceiling back to normal height. The original dropped ceiling ran down the hall all the way to the front door, so it cost us a bit more, but it was well worth it.

BUMP

I had this builder's site bookmarked for tray soffit ceilings, for inspiration.

How big is your light? Our mid-70's subdivision was built with these, mostly 4 foot square. I've seen houses for sale (never in person) where they did not enlarge the light area and it looked odd in scale to me - much too small. A friend in the neighborhood enlarged hers some and made it into a hexagon (or maybe octagonal) shape and put florescent lights behind crown molding up there - it looked very nice and threw a lot of light.

Here is a link that might be useful: tray soffit ceilings

We had a large rectangular fixture we removed. We fixed up the drywall and installed two solar tubes, and then have recessed cans around the perimeter area of the kitchen. It looks so much better, and we don't ever turn on the lights during the day. I don't have a pic I can post right now, but I'll see if I can figure that out later...