Yes, it would look odd to have crown molding over your cabinet, sorry.

I agree. Not much space either way and the cabinets tops are like a molding of their own.

Can you remove the crown, have a carpenter put trim above the cabinets (matching cabinets color), then add crown? It will look somewhat like a soffit (?) but will get rid of the dust catcher top and put the crown at ceiling level...not a pro just thinking how this might be solvable.

If you add molding to the ceilings, then I would for sure remove the molding from the cabinet tops.

Thanks. The challenge is I want the crown for the living room, so basically trying to determine if cabinet reality is a deal breaker (vs just less than ideal) since I’ve never like how “unfinished” the living room looks. I would not create a soffit.
I’ve found a few pictures of homes with my situation with crown but not many so it is hard to visualize since mine seems thicker. I may be out of luck in living room I guess