Most of you ladies, have the reality of husbands/significant's that probably could care less about decor or aesthetics of a home. My reality is, that my husband and I both care. Care very much, and well believe it or not, I sometimes have to fight for my voice or creative "flair" to be heard in my home. This has sometimes slowed our decision making down in the process of building this home. Fortunately, Dan actually had good creative ideas, and for the most part we have had to find those common things that we agree upon and move in that direction. Most of the time everything just falls into place. One of the things Dan and I have always agreed upon is a farm sink for the kitchen. We both have always loved the look of the farm sink. So, with the promise of a new kitchen, I mean you can't build a new house without a kitchen, we started with the farm sink we had agreed upon. So, we met with the kitchen designer, and settled on cabinets. The cabinets came in, and our builder started urging us to pick our counter top. Dan loves granite, but I would have been fine with a high resolution/ higher grade laminate or a solid surface counter top. Granite felt a bit mucky, muck to me, and although I love the look, I was not really sure if I could justify the cost. Our builder gave us the name of the guy he gets all his laminate through, and we set up a visit. We also got the recommendation of a stone and granite place. So, one day Dan and I took off in search of counter-tops. We first visited with the guy who does mostly high resolution laminate, and then to the granite place. Both asked be to send them prints of our kitchen, so they could get an idea of the size of job. Not long after I sent my design plans to the guy who did the laminate he called me back, and gave me the news that it is not a great idea to put a farm sink into laminate, cause in rare cases they sometimes de-laminate. GRRR, This will not be the first time I think or say, "I wish I would have known this about installing a farm sink."
So, our choices, solid surface, granite, or quartz. With the solid surface not a lot cheaper than the granite, we returned to The Stone Shop in Ankeny and picked our granite and slabs. We set up a time to have them measured and potentially installed. Remember-they had our plans already. So the day came that we were getting our kitchen measured. I waited with anticipation, the gentleman arrived, nice guy by the way, he came into the kitchen and looked around and pointed to the cabinet that would hold my sink. "That looks like you have a farm sink going in?" Yes, I said no knowing what was coming. "Do you have the sink?" Me, curiously, No, not yet, we are looking and trying to find what we want, but since you have to order a sink, we are a bit lost yet." Guy-Farm sinks are the only sinks we do not install, and they must be installed prior to us measuring, so we can get a correct measurement." GRRR- "I wish I would have known this about installing a farm sink. He was very surprised that the people missed the sink, but mistakes happen. If we can find the sink and get it installed in the next 10-15 days, there is still a chance that we can still have it installed by our current install date of April 1. You know, April Fools day.
After getting a couple recommendations of places to get farm sinks, I took off in search of my sink. I finally ended up at Plumb Supply in Des Moines, and found the sink of my dreams, oh yah, the farm sink we are looking for is black. Guess what the most expensive farm sink is? Black, because they only make the black farm sinks from cast iron, not composite yet. And a white farm sink would be an eye sore in my kitchen after picking the cabinets, appliances, and counter-tops. So, I gulped and said, "Order it". But first, we have to double check with your plumber and make sure we can make this purchase. I will send the specs to you plumber and wait to hear back from him, and then we can order it. So, I waited, and waited. bugged my builder, who bugged the plumber, and we waited and waited some more. Remember that window we had, well we missed it. I mentioned the plumber- I might have to have a separate posting, just to talk about.......him. Yah, pretty much everything he touched, crap. So they finally got it ordered and then we waited to have it come in. April 1st day came and went, April fools to me. Then, the sink was finally ready to be delivered. It was beautiful!!
That night, Dan came home and did some measurements.....Too small, the sink was too small for the cabinet opening. I had told the guy the sink front opening was 36 inches. So after a night of frustration, we found out that the sink, was the largest sink that was made by Kohler, and that the cabinet was made to big. Which, in looking back, and if we could go back, we wish the place who worked with us on our kitchen would have told us about all the ends and outs of installing farm sinks in like October, November when we met. We would have then known, we need to look at kitchen sinks to get an idea of size before order the cabinets, but it was one of those things we were some what rushed into. So, my handy husband and son in law took to installing the sink. I am so fortunate to have an amazingly talented and handy husband. More on that in the next post. Cherry on top, my daughter married one, much like him, smart girl.
So, here is the picture of my installed sink.
Dan and I recently took a walk down our road next to our timber. I wanted some air and exercise, Dan was hunting turkey sign. These pictures are of one of the coal creek located on and at the edge of our property. One of my favorite places to walk.
