Wow–quite a definitive response from the SDMB community!
You folks have really got me rethinking this one. My wife and I had, I thought, decided that 8-foot ceilings were fine. We aren’t really planning to sell anytime in the forseeable future, but you never can tell about such things.
For what it’s worth, here’s some exterior photos of my house style, some with 8-foot ceilings, and some with 9-foot ceilings on the first floor. With the optional bump-outs, my house will be about 2,700 square feet.
Looking at the photos, I like the proportions of the houses with nine foot ceilings.
There’s a lot of second story and roof above the ground floor. Also, the second story looks from the front like an attic with a shed-roofed dormer. With eight foot ceilings, it looks like the first floor is squatting down under the weight of the rest of the house. The nine foot plan seems to balance things out.
Also, turn of the century farmhouses around here (Central Texas) tend to have high ceilings to allow the summer heat to rise. The higher ceiling just looks right.
My 150-year old farmhouse has 10’ and 12’ ceilings on the first floor. Given the size of the rooms (15X17 or bigger) I think they’d look squatty with lower ceilings. The house isn’t air-conditioned (yet) but was relatively comfortable in the hot Tennessee summer.