Kitchen Renovation: The Sink

I am not even sure where to begin with this post. Mainly because this is where we made our biggest mistake as I mentioned in our first entry (found here) we did not measure the hole that the cast-iron sink left in the countertop.

Photographed here are our friends once again to demonstrate what our kitchen looked like before. The sink was too small to fit our fry pan to clean it and was cream/beige.

Due to the lack of knowledge of how to install a stainless steel sink we ordered a sink that the measurements were ok. However, a stainless steel sink does NOT drop in the same way as a cast iron sink does.

Jack the Cat gives his approval

Here is a picture of the cat testing out the new sink that we ended up having to return. It was a single hole, deep (9" I think) and would allow for a lot of dishes to be washed easily. Too bad he wont get to keep it.

Needless to say our hole was too small for our beautiful stainless steel sink. (Chelsie here, I wanted to add my two cents, the stainless steel sink we purchased had all the accoutrement included, faucet, drain, and soap dispenser. We ordered this maybe 2-3 days prior to anticipating the installation of it. By the time it was ready to be installed we had been without a kitchen sink for 6 days. So when it came time to install the sink we had to scramble to find a solution)

Imagine a kitchen like this for 6 days!

Ultimately we had two options: Cut the hole to fit the railing of the stainless steel sink or get a new sink. Not wanting to cut the countertop and run the risk of cracking the concrete that we just completed we decided to get a new sink. After a frantic search online we ultimately found a sink to fit at Lowes. However, of all the places we prefer Home Depot because of our contract with them that allows us to make money on our purchases from there.

These were the options at Lowes that I text to Chelsie

(Chelsie's two cents again... The sink we ended up finding at Lowes was a bigger hassle than Scott makes it out to be. First, let me start with the fact that I was still working during this and he was at the store alone, left to make a décor decision. Sufficed to say, he was calling me every 5 minutes. Every sink we liked was "not in stock", "online only" or "special order" with a 7 day waiting period. I thought, "we have been without a sink for a week already!" I told Scott to make an executive decision and pick a sink. He did a WONDERFUL job with his selection. The sink itself is beautiful however it was double the cost of the original sink we had to return. It did not come with any of the attachments so Scott was left to pick out more than he bargained for. However, in the end it was a WIN.)

This turned out to be a great buy in the end because the sink was composite and looks like stone and it was dark gray in color matching the gray in our backsplash. We had to get over the fact that it wasn't white, or a single sink, but once we did we realized we liked it a lot better! Like Chelsie mentioned, it was double the price of the stainless steel sink we had because it did not come with a faucet or drains but it fit in the hole, and that’s all that mattered.

After fighting sink into place I put in the faucet, I would normally recommend putting the faucet on first before putting the sink in. Unfortunately in our case it would not fit into the countertop with the faucet installed because of the lip of the bar countertop. (Of course nothing can go smoothly). After all the faucet, drains and disposal are all hooked up, I used poly seam seal made by Loctite around the sink. We also purchased this nifty roll up drainer. It is a way to add counter space, dry veggies or dishes or anything you really want really...I just know we really love it. As a matter of fact, we like it so much, we will promote it for free! Here is a link for it. Also, we wanted to show how large the sink is. We can actually fit our largest pan in the sink!

Thank you so much for reading! Stay posted for more updates about the kitchen and our home projects!