cutting down the height? or the backs? How much, and why would you need to change them?

Sorry, should have been clearer. Just depth - want to take them to the standard bath 21" size. Bath would be a little cramped with the standard 24" depth.

I think the problem would be the heights of the drawer fronts and doors available. You can easily create a bathroom base that is slightly taller than 30" (two 10" drawers or a 20" door; plus a 5" drawer) but you're stuck without full height doors. Or go with the standard cabinet for a vanity that is 36" tall. Or do the 20" cabinet (two 10" drawers or 20" doors) over a taller than normal toe kick. If you use the 24" deep version of the 20" base cabinet, maybe you could put an extra 15" deep drawer in the toe kick.

What about using the 15" base cabinets and mounting it 6" from the wall using the floor mounting kit (instead of the standard rails)? You could cut down 24" side panels to create false sides that ran from the front of the cabinet all the way back to the wall. From the outside it would appear to be a 21" deep cabinet. The only sign that it wasn't would be the 15" drawers, which would seem to work for most bathroom applications.

The only limitation I can imagine is that the sink would need to fit inside the 15" cabinet or you'd have to trim the back of the cabinet. The plumbing could be run in the 6" void between the wall and the back of the cabinet (I'd cut a decent sized hole in the back of the cabinet to allow access for plumbing emergencies.

It seems like this would be a lot less work and trimming if you can live with the 15" drawers (which you may have to, regardless).

The same drawer boxes and slides are used for internal pullouts as for regular drawers, with the slides mounted farther back. So you can definitely reduce the depth some and still use the standard drawers, but probably more like 1.5" rather than 3". I can measure when I get home.

Sorry (again), I'm usually pretty good about supplying adequate details - but I thought this was a standard and known hack on the old Akurum line.

Yes, I'd keep the cabinets at a standard kitchen height, so any front/side issues wouldn't be a problem.

What I thought was the case with Akurum was as fishcow described - that the standard drawers for 24" cabinets still fit when the cabinets were cut down to 21" depth, with no modification. I thought I'd read somewhere the only modification needed was to redrill the fastener holes on the back edge.

However, even if I can't reduce the depth on Sektions the full 3" I'm hoping for - it would be great to know how much they could be reduced and still fit with the standard drawers. A 1.5" reduction would still be helpful in this particular room.

As to the other options utilizing smaller drawers and/or base cabinets - thanks for the idea, and I'll keep that in mind as a last resort. We were hoping to get larger drawers, but saving $$ on this particular project is a higher priority.

Sorry it is so blurry but that is a pic of the inside of one of our 24" depth cabinets. Closed. The back of the drawer is a smidge less than 3 inches to the back wall. I think you could trim something ... but I don't think it would be easy. But I'm not familiar with how the hack worked with Akurum, so I'm not sure. This is Maximera attached to the cabinet front, rather than an interior drawer with a door. Hope it helps a little. The backer piece slides in a channel between the side pieces ... I suppose I'd worry about messing with the stability if a cut was made too close to the last section of holes.

My undersink drawer is 17" depth - it may be something you can hack - it's specifically shorter to miss the plumbing.

you might find this helpful - page 64 has all the drawers http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/pdf/buying_guides_fy15/sektion/System-bg-SEKTION.pdf

Hi, I am trying to cut the sektion to fit a 21 inch space. did anyone attempt this?

Hi, I am attempting to cut sektion down to 21 inches as well. did this work for anyone?