My friend is in the process of building a house and is thinking about her kitchen. She was asking my thoughts on a sink in an island bench. It’s funny that she contacted me at that moment because I had only that day been thinking about my own kitchen layout in the house I want to build and where to put the sink.
Chatting with my friend, she feels that having the sink on the island bench will look messy when there are dirty dishes piled up or if you have washed dishes and they are drying in a rack. Now I have never had a dishwasher so washing dishes and leaving them on a rack to dry is something I am a fan of. But my friend has a point…what if people popped in to visit and I have my dish rack hanging out there for all to see? I had never really thought about dishes being on the sink before. Here I was worried about the tap sticking out on clear island bench but now I was thinking about this new found dilemma!
All these glossy home decorating magazines show a beautifully staged kitchen, never one mid use. How do these people do their dishes?!? Do they do them in the secret of the night, under the cloud of darkness only to wake up before sunlight and put them away so the kitchen looks show ready in the morning?!? How does one function in a kitchen and use it for its purpose and yet still have it looking amazing?
The magazines don’t show the reality of a functioning kitchen. For example, let’s take the world’s most envied kitchen – the one from the movie “Somethings Gotta Give” – and with the magic of photoshop, let’s make it look like a kitchen that gets used for its purpose. Let’s throw in some dirty dishes, alongside a rack of drying dishes….what the heck let’s throw in some pots on the stove too:
Mmm….not looking so attractive now is it?
So where do you put the sink? Kitchen gods tell you that you need to consider the “kitchen work triangle” and where the stove, fridge and sink are in position to each other. Too far apart and it mucks up the efficiency of the kitchen.
That leads me to some other thoughts about sink positioning. Do you:
a) have a sink with a view? I am not a fan of washing dishes but would I gladly take on the chore if I had a fabulous view to take in? or
b) keep an eye out? Unless you have eyes in the back of your head, you would want to be facing the kids so you can watch what they are up to or if you are entertaining then you would want to be facing your guests right?
Remember in the old days when you went to the shop to get milk and you just pick up the only choice you had? Now you have to chose between full cream, light, soy, almond….OMG my head is spinning with choice!! Well it is the same for the humble kitchen sink. Do you go single bowl, double bowl, under bench, on top of bench, integrated into bench….there are so many choices these days! So many things to think about!
What’s your thoughts on kitchen sink positioning? Leave a comment and tell us where you have your kitchen sink.
Have fun!
