Today, we ambled around IKEA scoping out the kitchen & bathroom cabinetry and hardware. First, a hearty IKEA breakfast:

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Under-counter drawers:
Per the subject line, we'd been thinking, and finally confirmed that drawers for bathroom vanities, and drawers for all under-counter storage in the kitchen is the best idea ever.

You don't have to crouch down to see what's inside, or pull out all the stuff in front to get to the stuff in back. In the bathroom, you can keep a ton of things on hand without having to clutter the countertop. Do you lose some storage height? Yes, however I don't anticipate this being a problem for what we store in these two rooms.

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birch + white, and Vitviken sinks:
So...the bathrooms are tentatively going to be birch cabinets with white sinks:

We like the Vitviken line of sinks, which has a modestly sized circular sink bowl which = more counterspace.

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floating bathroom vanities: YES

Notice: no legs/portion of the cabinet touching the floor

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3-medicine-cabinet setup:
For the bathroom, a solid expanse of mirror is nice, but we're bigger fans of medicine cabinets...for the convenient storage. Here's a nice 3-medicine cabinet arrangement = open the two outer cabinets & you get a 3-way mirror in the middle.

The doors are also mirrored on the inside, which can be handy. My only hesitation is the quality of these mirrors and cabinets isn't very high.

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for bathrooms, skinny-opposite-wall-storage:

Two of our bathrooms will have room for only one medicine cabinet. If they are used primarily by 2 or 3 people, these skinny cabinets may be handy for toiletries. We'd probably mount them on the wall opposite that of the sink and toilet.

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extra space on side of vanity = another wall cabinet + towel bar:

Our master bath has a vanity space significantly wider than the widest IKEA sink vanity. This is one way to use the extra width.

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small bath ideas:
This shouldn't be a technique we need in this house, but we noted these two space-saving ideas:

1. mount a not-as-tall cabinet well below a sink = get some counterspace without the extra width

2. wall-mounted small sinks, for when you really need to save space. (Side note: I can't stand pedestal sinks. I could never rationalize wasting all that heavy porcelain to just create a stand, which isn't really needed.)

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behind-mirror storage:

Hinge a boxed-out mirror = hidden storage. The sign says, "Mount knobs to organize keys and accessories." We liked the idea of using this in a dressing area.

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kitchen color palette samples:

We're not sure yet if we are dark-, or light-cabinet fans. Our kitchen is large enough where dark cabinets shouldn't make it feel too closed-in or dark. But...dark cabinets still = less light reflected around.

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glass shelves in wall cabinets = see what's above:

For those on the petite side, glass shelves allow you to see what's above, even when you're looking from below.

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appliance garage:

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Overally, a productive IKEA visit. Side note: we were pleased to see there was a ton of marketing centered around concepts for small living spaces (they had a couple super-small studio apartment mockups, which is notable, given that this store is in the Silicon Valley suburbs).