By Alexei, founder of Loon Cabinetry — written from the shop in Minneapolis, MN.

A range hood is the one thing in a kitchen that almost nobody plans for in advance, and almost everybody ends up wishing they had. Cabinets get color swatches. Countertops get slabs picked out at the yard. The island gets argued about for weeks. The hood gets a “we’ll figure it out later.” Then later arrives, the cabinets are hung, and there’s a metal box bolted above the stove that doesn’t belong to the room.

I’ve built a lot of these for homeowners around Minneapolis, St. Paul, Edina, Chanhassen, and the rest of the metro. There’s no one right answer, but there is a process that gets you to the right answer for your house. This post is the conversation I usually have with clients before we draw anything, written down so you can think through it before you call.

Start with the house, not the hood

Twin Cities housing stock is all over the map, and the hood that works in one of these isn’t going to work in another. A 1920s bungalow in South Minneapolis with original plaster and oak trim wants a different hood than a 2019 build in Plymouth with twelve-foot ceilings and a quartz waterfall island.

A few patterns I see again and again. Older homes in Minneapolis and St. Paul (Powderhorn, Como, Mac-Groveland, Linden Hills) usually have lower ceilings, often eight feet, sometimes less. A tall plaster-style hood will feel like it’s eating the room. A shallower wood-wrapped hood that lines up with the upper cabinets reads cleaner. Older Edina and Minnetonka ramblers from the 1950s through the 70s tend to have mid-height ceilings and a wall that opens to a dining room — here the hood becomes a focal point you see from the next room over, so a shaped or paneled wood hood earns the extra cost. Newer builds in Chanhassen, Maple Grove, Plymouth, Rogers, and St. Michael come with tall ceilings and big wall space. That’s where a full-height plaster hood, a wood-and-metal-strap hood, or a custom shiplap mantel hood has room to breathe.

If you tell me your zip code and your ceiling height before anything else, I can usually narrow the style choices down by half.

Pick the insert before you pick the shell

This is the part most people get backwards. They pick a beautiful hood off Pinterest, then try to figure out what fan goes inside, then learn the fan they need won’t fit.

Inside every custom hood is an insert: the blower, the lights, the controls, the filters. The shell is what we build around it. The insert dictates a lot of the rest. CFM rating has to match your range — a 36-inch gas range with 48,000 BTU output needs more than a 30-inch electric coil. The depth of the insert dictates how deep the shell has to be. The duct path through your attic or rim joist often dictates whether you can even put the hood on the wall you want.

Before we draw anything, we want to know your range type and BTU rating (or watt rating if it’s electric or induction), where the duct can run, whether the kitchen is on an exterior wall, and whether you’ll need make-up air. That last one bites people in newer Twin Cities builds. Minnesota has its own rules, and any insert over 300 CFM in a tightly built modern home will trigger them.

Skip this step and you end up with a 1,200 CFM hood doing maybe 400 CFM of work because the duct run has four 90-degree bends and a flexible foil section nobody thought about.

Match one thing, contrast another

A custom hood works when it has a clear relationship to the rest of the kitchen. The simplest rule I use, and the one I keep coming back to with clients: pick one element to match, and one to contrast.

Match the hood paint color to the perimeter cabinets and contrast the texture. A smooth painted hood against shaker cabinets reads custom without being matchy. Or contrast the color (a stained walnut hood on a white painted kitchen) and match the profile, so the same crown detail at the top of the hood appears on the upper cabinets. When everything matches, the hood disappears. When everything contrasts, it competes with the rest of the room.

A few combinations I’ve built recently around the metro that worked. White inset cabinets with a stained white oak hood, leather-strap accents, in a Linden Hills tudor remodel. Deep green flat-panel cabinets with a plaster hood and a brass strap, in a new Chanhassen build. Painted shaker cabinets in a soft warm white with a shiplap mantel hood (also painted) and black metal trim, in a St. Paul farmhouse-style new build.

None of these came from a trend list. They came from clients showing me three or four reference photos, then us figuring out which element from each photo could live together.

Mantel, plaster, wood-wrap, or metal — what’s the difference

The four shells I build most often:

A wood-wrap or paneled hood is a wood box, often with shaker panels, beadboard, or shiplap on the face. Paintable. The most flexible style, works in almost any kitchen, and the easiest to integrate with existing cabinets because we can match the door style and finish. Best for transitional and traditional kitchens.

A mantel hood is a wood hood with a heavy bottom shelf or “mantel” that creates a strong horizontal line above the range. Reads more traditional, fits well in farmhouse and English-country kitchens. The mantel itself catches grease and dust, so this style needs a wipeable finish — flat paint will look terrible after six months of cooking.

A plaster hood is drywall and mud, sometimes with a curve at the top. Soft, sculptural, very on-trend in 2025 and 2026 for high-end builds. It’s a finish carpentry plus drywall plus paint job rather than a cabinetry job, so we coordinate with our finishers on these. Beautiful in tall-ceiling new builds. Less forgiving in older homes with settled walls.

A metal hood is stainless, blackened steel, copper, or hammered zinc. A statement piece. We build the substrate; the metal fabricator does the cladding. Best when the kitchen needs a single bold focal point and the rest of the room is restrained.

The price spread on these is wider than people expect. A simple painted wood-wrap hood can come in around the cost of two upper cabinets. A custom hammered copper mantel hood with a 1,500 CFM insert and a remote blower can run more than the entire perimeter cabinet package. Worth knowing before you fall in love with a photo.

The boring details that ruin a good hood

The gap between the bottom of the hood shell and the top of the range matters more than people think. Code minimum is usually 24 inches. Style-wise, 30 to 36 looks better in kitchens with ceilings over 9 feet, and 27 to 30 looks better with 8-foot ceilings. Get this wrong and the hood looks like it’s hovering or like it’s about to land on the cooktop.

The duct cover, sometimes called a chimney or flue cover, is the piece that runs from the top of the hood to the ceiling. People forget about it, then realize they have an unpainted metal can on display in their kitchen. Wrap it in the same material as the hood, paint it to match the wall, or pick a contrasting metal on purpose, but plan it.

Lighting is the third one. Most inserts come with halogen or LED downlights that throw a harsh white circle on the cooktop. If the rest of your kitchen is on warm 2700K or 3000K LEDs, a 4000K hood light will look wrong every single night. Spec the bulb temperature when you order the insert, not after.

Where Loon Cabinetry comes in

We design and build custom hoods as part of a full kitchen, or as a standalone piece if you already have cabinets you love. Either way, the design, the build, the finishing, and the install all happen with our crew. No middleman, no “the cabinet guy says ask the GC, the GC says ask the cabinet guy” loop.

If you want to see how this looks in finished kitchens, our custom kitchen cabinets in Minneapolis page has photos. Our St. Paul custom cabinetry work shows several hoods in different styles, and our Edina page covers more recent builds in the southwest suburbs. There’s also a piece on how we build the most durable custom cabinets in Minneapolis if you want to see how the substrate work translates to hood construction.

If you’re sizing the insert and want to sanity-check CFM and make-up air against Minnesota’s mechanical code, the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry’s 2020 building code page is the official reference. Read it before you buy anything over 400 CFM.

When you’re ready to talk through your kitchen, send us a note with your ceiling height, range model, and a couple of reference photos. We’ll tell you what’s possible in your space and what isn’t, before you spend a dollar.

Alexei is the founder of Loon Cabinetry, a Brooklyn Park, MN custom cabinet shop serving Minneapolis, St. Paul, Edina, Chanhassen, Minnetonka, Plymouth, Maple Grove, Rogers, and St. Michael. He has been designing and building custom cabinetry in the Twin Cities for over a decade.