That cabinet under the sink!

Everyone is familiar with that lost space under the sink. The pipes and inherent disorder of a cabinet with often no shelving. I am not a big fan of base cabinets with doors because drawers are so much more efficient for storage. Who likes rummaging through a 24" deep cabinet on your knees.

However in the case of the sink cabinet there are not many options because of all the utilities associated with water in and water out. There are however some ways to minimize the loss of storage.

1. Build your sink cabinet just as big as it needs to be. The inside dimension of the cabinet should be just 1/2" smaller then the largest outside diameter of the sink itself. This is often smaller then the manufacturer recommends, sometimes by as much as 2-3". We have found this to work fine and those few precious inches can be given to the cabinets on either side.
  
2. Find a sink with the drain to the back of the sink instead of in the center. This allows for much tidier installation of sink utilities. A good plumber can set those pipes and drains way to the back of the cabinet, making the front into better storage. Sometimes there is even enough room to put a shallow shelf in front of the pipes.

3. Finally, if you like single a bowl, there are some wonderful sinks out there that are only 24" wide! You can get away with a single door in these set ups! The best ones are called "D sinks" because of their shape. They are deeper in the back, so much so that the faucet has to be placed on the side. Because of this they have all the capacity of a wider, but shallower style.

Just a few tricks for keeping that black hole behind those doors a little bit friendlier, and not letting that greedy sink cabinet hog up to much of our precious kitchen storage.