Great post - what did you leave behind? I cannot believe the chemicals I used to clean with. I brought it down to vinegar and water spray, dish soap, and dishwasher detergent when we got a new "under the kitchen sink" space. The old one was beyond disgusting.

Under my sinks has always been as dry and clean as any other cabinet, I always thought that damp and musty meant a leak somewhere?

I took my bleaches and other name brand chemicals to the recycling office 5 years ago. I dont miss them a bit ;)

Mine was damaged from an old leak that was "dealt with" by the former homeowners through the clever application of Contac paper. I did not peel off for years, thinking it was easy to clean, and when finally did so I discovered a veritable science project of mold and bacteria. Also a significant chunk of what used to be "cabinet" (and now resembled paper mache') came up with the Contac paper.

I'm always appalled when I dig through the pile under our sink. Some of it is actually useful, but really belongs in the garage rather than the kitchen. Some of it probably was once useful, when Eisenhower was President. Some of it is what we never found after invading Iraq. I'm usually trying to fix some plumbing at the time, so I shovel it all back in the rathole, promising to deal with it later. David, your way sounds better.

Myers dish (lemon) and laundry soap (lavender), Simple Green, Arm and Hammer baking soda - there's nothing I can't clean. I used to have hundreds of bottles, cans, and containers under the sink, until I realized I was slowly poisoning myself and my family and wasting a fair amount of money.

David, do you think the smell was especially pungent because of the enclosed drawers? I'm curious because I've read about your under the sink drawers and think it's such a fantastic idea. It seems like better storage instead of the cavernous cabinet.

The smell was especially pungent for years because of the enclosed Cabinet.
Previously we had a cabinet.
Prior-reno.
Now we have drawers.
Now, with drawers, we have the storage that drawers provide.
And things are airy.
Every time a drawer is opened, air is forced to circulate.
The action of drawer-moving pushes air around.
I like to put a piece of paper towel covering the powder residue on the top of the Ajax/Comet, just to help keep it from going air-borne. (I think the powder can also go airborne even when you open a cabinet door.) This fine powdered product has some solid bleach in its granules, so we still do have a form of bleach under the sink. But the big old bleach bottle is history. It's amazing how much bleach bottles leak out pungent odors. Vinegar doesn't do that.

It was a leap of faith to go all-drawer under the sink. Nobody ever confirmed that having not one single cabinet was a fine way to go.

Many people opined that my proposed compact plumbing was impossible or not up to code. (Not true). Millions of people can confirm that the first bend in a drain can be and often is a "Tight" bend. (e.g. under a bathtub, under a WC, it's a tight bend), and Master plumbers can explain why a tight bend is OK as the first bend under a drain. As luck would have it, Franke, Elkay, Dornbracht, Blanco and others all sell a remote pop-up button that you turn to open / close the strainer in the drain. It's a cable that moves a lever. One thing they don't advertise is that your kitchen sink drain pipe ends up going sideways instead of straight down. THAT was the big advantage I had been looking for and found in this Ready Made Product that saved time since I did not need to Reinvent a Tight Bend in 1.5" diameter pipe. Result achieved: under the sink drain, my drawer floor is intact; it was not cut out to leave a notch for the drain pipe, because the drain pipe is horizontal and goes backwards to the wall. The P trap is in the empty space behind the drawer, close to the wall. I notched out the drawer's back panel, not the drawer floor.

--

My drawer support structure is Really Airy.
I have cabinet sides holding drawer glides.
And Not One More Panel Than That.

Drawers need no cabinet floor under them.
We figured we could safely forego the cabinet floor as long as cabinet sides remained parallel and square (not parallelogram-y).
This is another subject that could take time to describe, on another day.

Our lowest drawer we can open with a foot since there is no wood panel under it. Having no cabinet floor gives you an airy open space. When you remove all the drawers (an easy operation) you can work in that space with room to spare. ((P.S. I also removed the cabinet back panel; i can see the wall and the plumbing very easily.))

--

Combining several thought processes we were able to get the final result that achieved our goals, satisfied our desires, (and made us proud). One was the radical rethinking of product inventory; we got out of the chemical storage business and got into the nano mechanical stocking business: we buy and try out scotch brite type and mIcrofiber cleaning cloths and pads now, and find them all good.

Secondly, we got the drain pipe horizontally aligned and notched the drawer back not bottom.

A third thought was that drawers need side panels for the glides but not the other parts of a typical six sided cube that they sell at the "cube" store.

Pics, please? I'm about to lay out the cabinets in our new build and I'd love to see this arrangement.

no.
sorry but no.
1./ search the web for the pop-up drain if that is what you want to see.
2./ notching a panel is a no brainer.
3./ pics of anything else would just show a lot of straight lines going horizontally and vertically.
4./ i have to cut my time invested in "helping" at some point, and here is where i decline to go. Really Good Photos That Show Every Element Perfectly would take a lot of my time. Also, I don't want to start building a huge web based photo inventory.
5./ i put a lot of time into writing out the words.
(it can be argued that the words say more than a lot of straight lines would show.)
6./ there are a million reasons not to do anything i do.
6.a./ (one of them is "if you need more help, you aren't going to be able")
6.b./ (millions of good people cannot be helped because they need to buy an official product from an official product store and get the official story that comes with it.)
7./ go with whatever the locals will give you, if you are unable to make independent progress on your own.

Hth.

Some of us are verbal, some of us are visual. At any rate, thanks for the post.