I am hoping someone can suggest the best way for me to do crown
molding in my kitchen. I am a foolishly optimistic novice doing a new
cabinet install in my house and currently there are no wall cabinets
(I tore out the old ones, I put in the base cabinets and countertops
successfully). The new wall cabinets are 42" and, with the crown
molding, will run up to the ceiling. The doors are full overhang and
there is not much face frame peeking over the tops of the doors (maybe
1/8"). I was planning to put a backer board on top of the cabinets
around the perimeter where I was going to attach the crown molding,
just to give me something to nail into. I would do this before I
installed the cabinets on the wall, obviously, because there will be
no room to work on top of the cabinets once they are up. I would then
nail the crown into this backer.

Problem: the ceiling is not even.

There is no face frame for the crown to ride up and down to match the
ceiling. Here are some suggestions I have heard to solve this problem.
I would love to hear some feedback on these ideas or any other ideas
people have on how to solve this problem:

1. get an additional narrow molding and scribe to match the ceiling

pros-will match ceiling very well
cons-a lot of extra work, cannot do until the crown is installed,
difficult to attach to the crown once it's scribed

2. hang the cabinets higher and scribe the crown to match

pros-will match ceiling well
cons-if I scribe too much, will ruin the look of the crown, a lot of
effort

3. hang the cabinets low enough so that the crown never actually
touches the ceiling; leave a 'shadow line' above the cabinets that
will vary as the ceiling moves up and down

pros-very easy to do
cons-if the ceiling goes up and down by 1/2" or more, will this look
bad? Will it look bad regardless to have cabinets and crown that is
supposed to go straight to the ceiling but stops just short of it?

4. run quarter-round between the crown molding and the ceiling, on top
of the crown, and vary that up and down to match the ceiling

pros-easier than scribing
cons-cost of quarter-round; will it look good? can it cover a 1/2"
variation in ceiling height?

Thanks to anyone that can offer pointers, advice, information, or
suggestions! I am waiting for your answers before I make my next
move...