Our friend Jessica of @itty_bitty_farmhouse over on Instagram recently installed the Harper in her gorgeous kitchen. She was kind enough to share the whole process with us.
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Pumpkins in the best farmhouse sinks, what can be any more fun than that? Well, I know just the sink that can hold all of the pumpkins that you need to wash. When we bought this house we had a farmhouse sink but it had marks on it and a divider. This sink to me was just like your everyday sink with the white farmhouse color. I was on the hunt for another sink and guess what, I found the perfect one!
A few months ago I had the opportunity to go to the Haven Conference, where I was lucky enough to meet some amazing people from Sinkology. They had such an amazing booth setup showcasing some of the products they had to offer and of course, I fell in love with them. I started to talk with them on what was the best sink for my kitchen, that would help create my dream kitchen. That is when we figured out the Harper sink was going to be the one for my kitchen. The picture below is of the pervious sink that was in our kitchen . This one was a drop-in style sink and the Harper sink needs a mount to hold it in place.
When I found out I had to build an under-mount, I am not even going to say I was not worried because I sure was. Well, I headed over to Sinkology page on how to build an under-mount and they had a step by step on how to build this. They also have partnered with the @BILTapp that has video that will help you install the sinks from Sinkology. The under-mount that we built was made out of 2×4’s and was so easy to build.
Once we had the mount build, the sink just sat right in and that was it. The best thing about the sinks from Sinkology beside the fact that they are easy to install, they also are very durable. I am going to be very honest, I am not the most gentle person on kitchen sinks.The best part about any sink from Sinkology they come with their everyday promise lifetime warranty. They create sinks that are for your everyday use without the concern of how you might hurt your sink. Sinkology has many types of sinks to offer. They have many types of kitchen sinks from your white fireclay farmhouse sink to the new hammerhead copper sink.
Even though everyone loves their farmhouse fireclay kitchen sinks, they also have amazing bathroom sinks. Sinkology has a sink for any remodel that you are looking to do. I am over the moon with my new Harper sink, I mean just look at all the pumpkins that this sinks holds. We all know that I love my pumpkins. Head over to their website and make sure you pick out your sink for your next upgrade. Thank you for stopping by the blog today, XOXO
If you have any additional questions during your search for the perfect copper, fireclay farmhouse sink or granite sink, our Sinkologists are here to help. Contact us or follow us on Facebook, Houzz, Pinterest, or Instagram for more helpful tips and design ideas.
Our friends Lindsey and Esther love to share about amazing products they find and share them on their Instagram feed @bayareabuzz. They recently installed a Sinkology sink and shared with us their experience.
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When we first moved into our house one of the things I noticed right away was the black kitchen counters and black kitchen sink. They were fairly new and in great condition so everything was fine except for the color. Fast forward 4 years and scrolling through Instagram I found Sinkology.
Sinkology produces products that are handcrafted of highest quality and most importantly affordable. They specialize in Fireclay, Granite, and Copper sinks with all types of sink set ups: Drop in, undermount, and farmhouse. Their sinks come in standard sizes with varying features such as number of bowls, faucet holes, and colors.
Our Process
We decided we didn’t want to do a huge project of tearing out both the counter and sink since it would be a huge project and the counters were perfectly fine. We knew the sink was our main concern since with a black sink we couldn’t tell if it was ever clean! Also it made the kitchen feel so dark and unwelcoming. We had a drop in sink before and went back in forth between making it a “bigger” process by switching to a Farmhouse Sink or sticking with a Drop In Sink. When we scrolled through their Copper drop in sinks, we were in love!
Sinkology’s Copper Sinks are all hand-hammered by artisans and made from the highest quality pure copper available. They have various styles and color variation to fit your style and needs. We decided to go with their Angelico Drop-In Copper Sink that was the same exact dimensions of our previous sink but had one big bowl instead of the 2 bowls. We went with 4 faucet holes so we would have enough holes for the soap dispenser, a garbage disposal air gap, and room for the faucet cover. We also opted for one of their all-in-one kits with the Ashfield Pfister Faucet, Disposal Drain, and Care Kit.
One we chose and received the sink, installation was actually a breeze and only took about an hour to complete! It was basically, take out old sink, drop in new sink, hook up the pipes, seal, and wait for seal to dry before the sink was ready to go! Sinkology provides step by step instructions in both written and videos on their website
Using and caring for our copper sink has been a breeze. We apply their copper Care solution that came with our kit for a simple sealant that is water-based and environmental friendly. One thing to note about Copper sinks is that it is a “live” material that is constantly changing. Copper has a natural patina that constantly changes color depending on different substances it comes in contact with and constantly changes over time. We love that our sink look is constantly changing and growing with us over time!
If you have any additional questions during your search for the perfect copper, fireclay farmhouse sink or granite sink, our Sinkologists are here to help. Contact us or follow us on Facebook, Houzz, Pinterest, or Instagram for more helpful tips and design ideas.
We are excited to partner with some amazing friends to bring you S’mores & More! This will be a fun Fall bonfire themed party featured right on Instagram stories. Join us Thursday October 10th at 7pm to find out how to create the perfect gathering step by step from 5 of our favorite accounts on Instagram.
Take a look below to see what these talented ladies will be creating and make sure to follow each of them for a chance to win a farmhouse single basin fireclay sink of your choice!
Rockpapersis specializes in custom event invitations including wedding invitations, save the dates, programs, menus, and more. In addition to wedding stationery, Rockpapersis creates party and event stationery, custom design services, and more.
Sierra is raising 4 little humans who inspire her to inspire us with home decor, motherhood & a bit of everything in between. She is a pro at affordable DIY & mixing styles to create the perfect spaces.
Christine is a designer and maker of modern farmhouse signs who designs with you in mind. She has endless amounts of signs to check out on her Instagram feed all available on her Esty page.
Emily is a blogger, foodie and mother of 4 who is always sharing easy & delish recipes. We have featured many of her blogs on our website and we are excited what she has to share with us all!
Brooke is a lover of all DIY projects. She describes herself as an organizing nerd, chaos coordinator & mother of 2. We have worked with her a few times over the years and she always amazes us with what she can get done.
If you have any additional questions during your search for the perfect copper, fireclay farmhouse sink or granite sink, our Sinkologists are here to help. Contact us or follow us on Facebook, Houzz, Pinterest, or Instagram for more helpful tips and design ideas.
Sinkology is proud to present Kristan Allen, our design expert and guest blogger who runs the @FarmhouseRedefined Instagram. Kristan is here to share some design ideas and inspiration around designing your home around your Sinkology sink.
Spring and summer typically bring an onslaught of predictions for what will be big in home design for the upcoming year. And if you’re anything like me, you relish reading up on all the trends and exciting new things on the horizon! One thing I can never get enough of? Color palette predictions! I love to see what hues rise to the top and brainstorming how I can bring these pops of color into my own home
Behr recently shared its 2020 color predictions and I love how they broke it up into three beautifully grounded palettes: Worldhood, Restore and Atmospheric. Each one is a dichotomy of color that spans warm, cool and neutral…ummm yes, sign me up! While my mind immediately started scheming of ways to work these colors into my home, I also noticed how each palette would match beautifully with Sinkology’s collection of kitchen sinks – did you know they offer sinks in three different materials now?! Take a look below for my take on pairing Sinkology sinks with these Behr color predictions for next year.
Rustic, Earthy and Warm
Behr’s Worldhood palette is made up of a variety of warm shades that range from tan and pink to ochre and russet red. The spicy warmth makes copper a natural partner in my mind! The burnished, textured tones of Sinkology’s Adams Farmhouse Sink would pair beautifully with any of these shades. As part of the All-In-One Kit, Pfister’s Ashfield Pull-Down Faucet in Rustic Bronze complements the sink and these style-forward colors, which could be brought in as accents (think canisters and tea towels) or focal points (Red Pepper or Cider Spice cabinets, anyone?).
Cool, Calm and Breezy The Restore palette reminds me of all nature’s coolest and calmest hues – mossy greens, teals and light blues. Definitely relaxing and peaceful! The clean simplicity of these colors makes crisp white a perfect complement. Sinkology’s Fireclay line of sinks, which includes the Bradstreet II, is so versatile when it comes to design. The clean lines, white color and durability make these sinks a great choice for any type of kitchen – whether you’re meal prepping for 1 or 12! In thinking about this sink/color palette combo, you can keep things stylish and classic with a stainless steel faucet like Pfister’s Clarify Pull-Down.
Neutral, Light and Ethereal
Most of the colors in the Atmospheric palette are what I would consider core neutrals – but I love that Behr threw in a pale lavender color for some fun! This neutral palette would be at home anywhere and that’s how I feel about Sinkology’s granite sinks. They come in three different colors and their natural materials make them both durable and beautiful. The Whitney in Graphite Gray is a great way to channel uniformity within this color scheme. It’s a great middle ground for the lighter and darker neutrals, and with a matte black faucet like Pfister’s Stellen Pull-Down, it’s a match made in monochromatic heaven!
What colors are you loving as we move through this year and into next? Do your tastes tend to change as seasons and years fly by or are you pretty consistent in what you love? I have my staple likes that stay pretty constant…but I’m always looking for ways to change things up through color and pattern. Happy Styling, Friends!
If you have any additional questions during your search for the perfect copper, fireclay farmhouse sink or granite sink, our Sinkologists are here to help. Contact us or follow us on Facebook, Houzz, Pinterest, or Instagram for more helpful tips and design ideas.
Our friends Catherine & Bryan over @beginninginthemiddle recently completed a kitchen renovation in their 100 year old Victorian home. They installed a Sinkology fireclay sink & shared with us the details of their renovation.
Today is an exciting day!! After over two years of renovations, we’re revealing the first room at The Blonde Vic: THE KITCHEN! If you’re new here and don’t know about this project, we’ll fill you in. In 2017, Bryan & I bought the Vic with plans of making it a vacation rental for our brand, The Village Host. It’s a 3,000 sq. ft Victorian that was built over 100 years ago, and this is what it looked like when we did our first walkthrough.
We gutted & renovated the entire thing, from the roof all the way down to the basement. Despite the extent of the reno, we really didn’t want it to feel like a brand new house in an old shell, and tried to preserve what was there & add back as much character as possible.
In 2018, we found out we were having a baby and at the last minute, and decided to move in instead of renting it out. Now that we’re living here, we’re adding finishing touches little by little to the interior & hope to tackle the exterior later this year. We’ve been documenting our design & reno progress on the blog here and on IG here in case you’d like to take a peak! Over the next few months, we’ll begin revealing one room at a time and can’t wait to show it all to you!
Now onto the kitchen reveal… grab a cup of coffee and get comfy, folks – this is a long one!
OUR PARTNERS
Before we get into the thick of it, we want to say a giant thank you to our brand partners on this kitchen who were so wonderful to work with. We love & use these brands on other renovations, and were thankful they said yes to being a part of our own kitchen at The Vic. Semihandmade, Emtek, Sinkology, A Carpenter’s Son, CS Hardware, McGee & Co, and Delta – we’re talkin to you.
THE DESIGN
Bryan & I went through about 27 different options for the kitchen, trying to take into account all of the important factors in kitchen design. Traffic flow, maximizing storage & functionality, minimizing clutter, and of course… aesthetics. From the beginning, we knew we wanted to go dark in the kitchen but the design definitely evolved from when we started planning to the end result. You can catch up on all of our different design changes here & see our final design here. The biggest wish list items we knew we needed to incorporate were:
Add a bathroom to the first floor
Enlarge kitchen while retaining as much of the original floorplan as possible
Retain a traditional dining room; create comfortable living room
Integrate kitchen finishes with the rest of the home & make it feel like another living space (modern/traditional/vintage-inspired)
With all that in mind, our final floorplan ended up looking like this (we kept all of the walls as-is outside of the kitchen):
Here’s a closer look at the kitchen.
And here’s a screenshot of our final rendering.
THE RENO
This is what the view from the front door of The Vic used to look like, before (left) & after (right) demo. The kitchen is straight ahead.
Getting a little closer, this was the old kitchen space in all of its messy glory. (psst, you can find the rest of the first floor before tour here).
And this is what the kitchen space looked like after demo. I almost forgot how bad it was!!
There were two staircases in the house. The one inside the kitchen walls was likely a servants’ staircase that allowed them to come directly into the kitchen without entering the main area. The odd thing about it is that it just lead to the same landing as the main staircase — it didn’t go any farther than that like servants’ staircases typically do. Weird, right?
This was the view after framing, insulation, and electrical rough-in…
And after drywall, flooring, and cabinet frames started going in. Typically we save cabinet install for last, but in this case, we had to do things out of order because of painting & flooring delays.
Speaking of flooring… our flooring guy installed new red oak hardwood floors in the kitchen to match the rest of the 1st floor, and then refinished all of the floors at the same time. It really makes the kitchen feel like it’s always been that way!
AFTER
Hereeeee it is now!
By removing the second staircase in the kitchen, we were able to make room for another wall of cabinets on the left & a powder room behind them.
It was a tough decision, but we had to do it considering the limited space we were working with.
This is the first time we took out a wall in an old home, and I’m so glad we did. The kitchen itself isn’t big (it’s about 12′ x 12′), but having the wall open into the living space makes it feel twice as big.
This is what that same view looked like when we bought the house.
And again, as construction progressed.
And then after we got new drywall up, Metrie molding, our new mantel & lighting installed.
Here’s the view from the coffee bar looking into the living room & dining room. I really love this view Usually we have a TV above the fireplace, but swapped it out for these photos. We’ll likely invest in The Frame TV so we can have a blend of TV + art.
I love that we can be sitting at the island or cooking and see the fireplace — it adds a coziness factor to the kitchen that goes a long way.
The front of the island was a DIY that evolved over time. We loved the look of fluted wood, but didn’t have the budget to get something made custom, so we mimicked the look by installing small wooden dowels close together. We’ll add a brass strip at the bottom to finish it off (one of these days, ha!) but for now we’re super happy with how it came out.
On cabinets, we partnered with Semihandmade on this kitchen. They make custom doors that fit on IKEA frames, which allows you to combine the functionality of IKEA cabinetry with a big variety of doors & drawer fronts. We love, love, love them (and so do our clients)! We opted for the DIY Shaker line of doors, which come unfinished & can be painted whatever color you’d like. After searching for the perfect black/green/blue/grey, we landed on Behr Black Sable. It changes colors in different light and it feels sophisticated & moody without being too harsh.
One of my favorite decisions was incorporating an appliance cabinet & coffee bar into the design. Because this kitchen is open to the living room and is visible from the entryway, we wanted to minimize visual clutter as much as possible. We put the coffee bar off to the side, so anyone can linger over there without getting in the way of traffic flow. During electrical rough-ins (when the electricians come to run wires) we had them add an outlet into the cabinet, so all the chords are contained. We ran the countertop underneath the cabinet, which makes cleaning up inevitable coffee spills much easier. Inside, we have an espresso machine + milk frother, toaster, small microwave, blender, and some mugs. In the base cabinet directly below it, we keep a stash of Nespresso pods & tea in the top drawers and store less used appliances on the bottom shelf.
The ceilings in our kitchen are 10′ tall, so we took advantage of that and stacked our upper cabinets. The bottom set are 40″ tall, and the top set are 15″. Bryan built a library ladder rail, which we installed between the top two tiers of cabinets to support our rolling library ladder from CS Hardware. The frame for the rail is made out of select pine, which is smooth & better quality than standard pine, and painted to match the cabinets. (This was a huge advantage of going with the DIY Shaker doors. They may require extra work over the prefinished doors that Semihandmade has, but they give you extra flexibility to customize & paint without having to worry about your added pieces matching the pre-finished doors!)
We store it in our living room corner and will post more photos soon when we finish staining it.
We saved a few thousand dollars easy by buying all of our appliances scratch & dent. The range, panel-ready dishwasher, and panel-ready fridge totaled about $6k but should have cost over $10k. The best part is that none of them were actually damaged — they were just floor models, which means they were out on display but never actually used (these are often the best type of scratch & dent finds).
Our range was the inspiration for the entire kitchen, and the first purchase we made on our reno (not even kidding). We originally were looking at La Cornue, which are $10k+ alone, and somehow stumbled upon Tecnogas, which is an Italian brand that expanded into the US market a few years ago. There’s no LED controls – everything is controlled with the knobs – so it feels old timey & fits right in with the rest of the home. Favorite features, aside from it working really well & being easy to use, are the soft close door (why don’t all ranges have this?), the dial on the front displaying how hot the oven is, and the black-stainless-brass combo.
From the beginning, I knew I wanted to use latches on the cabinet doors. We searched for a few weeks for the perfect ones, and ended up discovering Emtek. Guys, their hardware is SOLID. We chose 5 different pieces of hardware for this space (two different types of knobs, latches for the uppers, appliance pulls, and cup pulls for the dishwasher and pull out trash bin), but kept the finish French Antique throughout.
For countertops, we chose quartz for the range wall and marble for the island. We liked the idea of going with Quartz next to the range because it’s virtually maintenance free and can handle spaghetti sauce splatter and oil spills like a champ. Because it’s on the back wall, you can’t really see the details of it either way and figured we’d save ourselves a few headaches by having something super low maintenance next to the range. We bought the Cloud River slab from Floor & Decor and installed it ourselves to save money.
On the island, we found a discounted Carrara marble slab at a local stone yard and fell in love. There was only one slab available, and that slab was only long enough to cover one waterfall edge + about 3/4 of the top of the island. After scouring the internet for ideas, we stumbled upon this kitchen by Jean Stoffer and had an ah-ha moment. We worked with Josh from A Carpenter’s Sonhere in Columbus to build a walnut waterfall edge to complete the island, and IT’S PERFECT. We weren’t sure how durable the wood would be, and have been pleasantly surprised at how well it’s held up.
Here’s one last peak at the space.
Kinda hard to believe it used to look like this!
And that’s all for now, folks. We’re working on a full budget breakdown of this space with all of our sources linked up, and can’t wait to share more photos of our library ladder. We’ll be back soon with more! In the meantime, be sure to follow us over on IG @beginninginthemiddle.
If you have any additional questions during your search for the perfect copper, fireclay farmhouse sink or granite sink, our Sinkologists are here to help. Contact us or follow us on Facebook, Houzz, Pinterest, or Instagram for more helpful tips and design ideas.
Usually we have a TV above the fireplace, but swapped it out for these photos. We’ll likely invest in 
