Kitchen Planning: Farm Sinks

Before I even owned a home, heck, before I was even out of braces I knew that I wanted a farmhouse sink one day.  Ooh, I get chills even thinking about them.  Fireclay, copper, stainless steel...it doesn't matter, I just love the statement that it makes.  And the best part is that you can incorporate them into just about any style home....contemporary (stainless steel or slate), old world/spanish (copper), vintage (fireclay and slate) and traditional (just about any of them).   There are so many different shapes and styles and patterns that it would be hard not to find something that works within your decor and budget.  And speaking of budget...IKEA even makes a really great farmhouse sink for just $299.  L.O.V.E.

So...needless to say, the sink was the FIRST thing on my list of must-haves for the kitchen renovation.  In fact, the entire plan was built around this one item.  I received a few grumbles early on about how it would work and what it would cost and why we would need such a big one, but just the other day (and this is a direct quote), B said "You know, I really love this sink!"  EEEE....that was all I needed to hear.  It was like music to my ears.  Yes, it was a pain to re-build the base cabinet (with 2,256 supports to hold the 300+ lb beauty) and yes, we could have received a FREE stainless steel undermount sink from the granite guy.....but trust me, it was all worth it!

Let's start back at the beginning.  Here are some of my inspiration photos....

This last one is my favorite.  The white sink jutting out from the creamy cabinetry with it's soft rounded edge.  Oh, and then there is the beautiful crisp, clean carerra marble countertop.  I might have just drooled a little.

So, before we even finalized the flooring, the cabinets, even the layout, I rangled me up a farm sink of my very own.  I ended up choosing the Barclay 30" farmhouse sink.  And although it generally sells for anywhere between $699 - $899, I found a seller on ebay willing to sell it for $595 with FREE SHIPPING!  And when you are talking about a 300 lb. item, shipping is usually OUTRAGEOUS!  I definitely couldn't pass up a deal like that, so I ordered it!!!  YAY! 

It was definitely more than I had budgeted for a sink, but I knew that it was going to be worth every penny. 

Now, I just needed to figure out how we were going to install it. 

We had originally planned to rip out the old pine cabinets and replace then with new painted maple cabinets, but after several trips back and forth to the cabinet stores (we checked out a few local places, as well as Lowe's and Home Depot to compare prices), we decided that we would just paint them.  This would not only save us some money, but would (theoretically) help move along the kitchen renovation process faster since we wouldn't have to wait the 6-9 weeks for the cabinets to be ordered and delivered.  So...because of this decision, we would have to rebuild the existing sink base cabinet to house this new ENORMOUS sink.  Hm....that's one's all you, honey!  I didn't really thinking about the logistics of it when I planned/purchased it.  I was more focused on the "it looks pretty" factor.

Here we are before we began the installation process...

You can see that we have removed all of the doors to the cabinets (the sink base is the one directly under the window), but we still have that facing piece towards the top of the sink base to deal with and some supports to add to bear the weight of the new sink.

I have to admit that I did not have much anything to do with the re-construction of this sink base, so I will have B write up a tutorial next week on how he built the support system and new doors to the cabinet (since the old doors were too tall for the depth of the sink). 

In the meantime, here is a little shot of the re-constructed cabinet base before we put the sink in.

And with our lovely fireclay masterpiece in place...

YAY!!!

We are heading up to Bar Harbor for the weekend, but I will be back on Monday with some photos and more on the kitchen progress.  Have a great weekend!