Coops, there's no plumbing or electrical up there. The house is built in 1956. I think that's just the way they did it back then - people were shorter.
So, since i posted the first time, the whole wall is down, and DH is trying to add an outlet. He's running into electrical problems though. There is one 4-outlet in the right corner of that wall (the only outlets in the kitchen on that side!). So he's putting one 2-outlet in the left corner. The said something about there's a wire that comes up from the basement, into one outlet, out, into the other outlet, back down, and up again to the fridge! So he can't get them to work. By the way, he is replacing the existing outlets with a GFCI, and the new one will also be GFCI.
He has not removed all the soffit from the over the fridge/oven area, but it is coming down. I'll post updated pics later.