Kitchen sink - plan early

There is this short poem that goes like 

" For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

  For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

  For want of a horse the rider was lost.

  For want of a rider the battle was lost.

  For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

  And all for the want of a horseshoe nail." 

Image copyright: Koel Das

While you don't have to be poetically inclined to understand this, it actually contains an important learning. Right now it reminds me of the kitchen sink that I could not buy. And the actual reason is due to a lack of 50 mm of space. Something that the architect or whoever designed that particular space thought didn't matter. Also our kitchen designer never bothered to point out that I was ending up with a 500 mm sink cabinet than a typical 600 mm sink cabinet. If she did, I might have had the kitchen designed a bit differently.  

Unfortunately, I discovered it much  later when I set my eyes on a kitchen sink that wouldn't fit into the designated space due to a size constraint. That's when we discovered the small details. Since we did not want a sink with a drainboard, that gives us lesser options to choose from and the final reduced list contains sinks that are best used as a bar sink. The only saving grace is that we have an additional bigger sink which will take the load of all heavy duty activity and the kitchen sink will be primarily used for prep work.

Courtesy: Hafele (from iSpace)

The other takeaway from this fiasco was that even though it seems like you can think about where to place the  kitchen sink and the chimney hob a bit later in the design process, it is actually a better idea to be aware of what you need (and perhaps want) quite in the early process. That way you would be aware of the constraints of your physical space ( small corner, gas pipe can't be extended in a direction, difficulty to pass the chimney duct, etc) and try to figure out solutions to them if possible. In my case, I actually thought that choosing the kitchen sink and hob was the easiest and I could spend the least amount of time and cognitive effort on that activity. And that is very rarely true.

Also the kitchen triangle doesn't always work best when it is in the shape of a triangle. What you need to figure out is how you work in the kitchen ( or your cook does ) and then make sure the 3 elements of the triangle are suitably located. One of my neighbours discovered very early on that the location of the kitchen sink wasn't suitable and requested the builders for slight changes. As a result the kitchen sink is in a location where it would actually help. Good design and prior planning are very obviously helpful.

Courtesy : Blanco

Courtesy : Carysil

The sink that I really liked was a Blanco sink sold by Hafele in India. It has this beautiful stone like surface that is wonderful to touch. A bit of research told me that it is equally tough as well and a great material for kitchen sinks. Since the sinks available would not fit my kitchen sink cabinet, I looked at other similar alternatives and came across Tectonite from Franke , quartz sinks from Nirali, granite sinks from Carysil, quartz sinks from Futura. We were quite sold on Carysil but I don't remember exactly why we didn't finalize it for our sink. Finally we decided to go with the stainless steel options from Franke even though granite or quartz would have been a wonderful change. Also it would be good to know that interior designer Nandita Manwani mentions it is best to buy the ones with good quality which unfortunately come at a higher price.


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