sink in kitchen island
Can someone explain to me the logistics of sinks in the island (am deciding whether to put a stove top or sink in my kitchen island). Where do you put the drying rack for pots and pans that don’t go in the dishwasher? And doesn’t water get everywhere when you’re cleaning dishes? It seems to…
Can someone explain to me the logistics of sinks in the island (am deciding whether to put a stove top or sink in my kitchen island). Where do you put the drying rack for pots and pans that don’t go in the dishwasher? And doesn’t water get everywhere when you’re cleaning dishes? It seems to me that sinks need to be up against a backsplash because of all the splashing that happens in the dish washing process. Or am I just a sloppy dish-washer?
As I mentioned in a thread about a kitchen I designed, I like specifying a sink where an partial insert rests about halfway down, functioning as a discrete drying rack. For big washing the insert comes out easily.
The sink: http://www.ajmadison.com/phpdocs/ajtest/item_image_browser.php?sku=ORX610
The insert: http://www.ajmadison.com/phpdocs/ajtest/item_image_browser.php?sku=OC31CRH
–an architect in Brooklyn
We put our sink in our island, and I love it. We put in a very deep sink with a tall curved faucet. I’ve always hated how slimy the area behind my sink got, and this set up is better for that. I also like talking facing others while I do the dishes. I don’t mind drying my dishes beside the sink.
If you’re single or a couple, using the dishwasher as a drying rack may work. Otherwise, it depends on how many dishes you use. If I’m washing dishes by hand, often it’s because the dishwasher is full and running. Or, if I’m washing stuff that can’t go in the dishwasher, the dishwasher probably has dirty stuff in it, waiting for a full load. It’s never really empty for more than a few minutes.
Have any of you addressed the issue of the plumbing vent? I’m an architect, and it’s something that comes up whenever I do an island or peninsula sink.
Technically, and according to code, a vent pipe is required to allow air into the waste line as the water drains. This line must be run to the exterior, and if traversing horizontally, must be run about 8″ minimum above the counter.
This is one major reason sinks are usually against or adjacent to a plumbing wall.
When washing dishes by hand place them in the dish washer to dry instead of the countertop. Same thing except they are not in view.
We’re not putting our sink in an island, but it will be going into a counter that juts out from the wall, so it won’t have a back splash. I agree with the above posters: a deep sink means pretty much no splashing outside of the sink. Guess we’ll have to start calling them “back no-splashes.”
As far as drying the hand-washables, we seem to have more hand washables than the other two posters. We definitely want to have a full-sized dish rack next to our sink. So, we’re probably going to have a drainboard installed next to the sink, which is like a very shallow sink, about one inch, that a nice-looking, matches-the-sink dish rack will sit in. The drain board has it’s own drain and slopes very slightly towards it.
But if you don’t have as many dishes that air dry, then either of the above suggestions would work fine. It just depends on how much you’ll use a dish rack.
Also, someone will probably post that sticking a big dish rack on your island won’t look good, so that’s another consideration. Some people actually install a second full-size sink to put a full-size dish rack in. But we just don’t care if we have a dish rack sitting on the counter. It is a kitchen, after all, and I guarantee it won’t be the only thing sitting up there (I’m talking about in our house; you may not be as messy :-).
I was going to say that most of the island sinks I’ve seen are bar or prep sinks, which aren’t used as the main dishwashing sink in the house. Then I looked at the parlor-floor kitchens feature on the home page and two of the four kitchens have island sinks. Go figure.
Logistics: it will work if you have a deep enough sink and a correctly placed, proper-height faucet to minimize splashing. Ninety-five percent of my splashing is on either side of my sink, not against the backsplash, so I’d be less concerned about water on the floor. As far as drying racks, I’d keep a fold-up one underneath the sink and use it to drain wet dishes, then hand-dry them and put the rack away. If you’re getting a stone countertop, you can have runnels cut into it that slope towards the (undermount) sink, but it means you give up that whole runnel’d space as countertop prep space.
I’d’ also think carefully about plumbing and dish storage. It will cost more to run your plumbing lines to the middle of the floor to service a sink (and dishwasher?) rather than keeping them on a wall. And I’d want my everyday flatware and dishes to have drawer storage space in the island, because it’d be a pain to have to take the dishes to the island, wash them, then trek them back to another area of the kitchen for storage.
If you decide to go with a cooktop on your island instead of a sink, the main issue is ventilation, especially if you get one of the cooktops with high BTU burners. There are a lot of vent hoods made for islands but you have to think a bit harder about the aesthetics of the whole thing with a hood out in the middle of the kitchen.
We have a nice deep farm sink and the water doesnt splash more at the back of the sink than it does at the sides. So when that happens, I just wipe up behind the sink like I do the area to the left and right.
There arent too many things I dont put in the dishwasher but on the rare occassion I do have something, it dries for a little while on the counter and then I put it away. I dont think putting something on the island to dry is anymore unsightly than it would be if the sink were on a wall cab.