Wow! I could never live with a 7' ceiling in a home. I tolerated one when I lived 50% of the time in my big motorhome for three years but couldn't handle it now.
I am very claustrophobic. I have a lot of cookware hanging from the ceiling in my pantry, which makes it very handy to just reach up and grab the skillet or pot that I need.
People have come up with very clever storage solutions for all kinds of things that look like fine furniture. One of my neighbors has a galley type kitchen with a door in one end wall and at the other end a door into a side wall that opens into the dining room part of their family room. Just outside this door on the common wall is a repurposed '50s or '60s entertainment console- the kind that held a TV, record player and radio with built-in speakers. He gutted the inside, installed the pre-fab roll-out drawers where all of the pots, pans and two or three small appliances are stored. He got some IKEA wall shelving units but attached them to the top of the console leaving an open space in the center and the shelves hold China and glassware. The center open space has big platters mounted on the wall in brackets. Everything is handy to the kitchen and to the dining table.
It is very attractive and looks like a sideboard even with the cloth sections where the speakers used to be.
Those older consoles are deeper than the later ones because the TV tubes were huge.
