How much time did you devote to choosing your refrigerator? Your range? No doubt you thought about what you needed and what it should look like. Sure, a sink may be smaller and more simply designed, but the details are just as important. After all, by some estimates, you’re likely to spend 70% of your time in the kitchen standing in front of your sink.
Unless you have serious insomnia, there’s no way you’ll log that many hours at the fridge door.
So your sink should offer a few things—and trust us, not all of them do…
- Capacity. A sink with sides that slope in won’t make the most of the available footprint. Instead, look for vertical sides with a minimal curve at the bottom corners to maximize your valuable space. It’ll make a difference when stacking dishes, washing pans, prepping food, potting plants and so on.
- Care. When you put a wine glass or vase into the sink, you shouldn’t have to worry about whether it’s going to tip over. A flat bottom will help keep things upright. Still, many sinks have steeply angled bottoms that put glassware at risk.
- Sound control. You won’t hear this in the showroom or online, but some sinks can sound like a tin roof in a rainstorm. If you prefer to converse in the kitchen, make sure your sink has a sound-absorbing spray coating or pads—or better yet, a combination of the two.
- Comfort. We’ve talked about the importance of choosing the right sink depth, because cleaning up is enough of a chore without giving yourself a backache.
- Cleanliness. Isn’t that the whole point of a sink? Yet it can be one of the messiest areas in the kitchen. Fortunately, some manufacturers are working to solve that. For example, Elkay’s Perfect Drain offers a seamless path to the pipe, so crumbs don’t build up into a nasty brown ring. And accessories such as hooks, sponge holders and more make it easier to keep the whole area tidy.
Bottom line? There’s more to a sink than meets the eye. Look closely before you buy.
