Not only does it make much more sense to have the window kind of centred in that wall, there was another reason.
It was this guy.
He's a never-used display kitchen sink, and I found him on Gumtree for $100. Which is particularly satisfying given that he still has a sticker attached with the price that "Carmel" was paying for him - $833.80. I'll take a $733.80 discount on a brand new Clark brand sink any day!
Back when we banished our beloved hutch (the first piece of furniture we bought as a couple) from the kitchen (and from our lives), his spot was quickly taken by our dishwasher and the big farmhouse sink that came with the second-hand kitchen cabinets that we bought. Now with "Carmel" on the scene, it made a lot of sense to reposition the window so that it would sit centred off our kitchen tap.
Of course we could have simply used the farmhouse sink that we already had. It was in pretty good condition, and would look absolutely perfect in a country-style kitchen, but it didn't really fit with the aesthetic that we had in mind for our new kitchen. So unfortunately for it, it had to come out.
Tom dove into the cabinet and removed the drainage plumbing from underneath the sink...
And we moved the farmhouse sink outside to be cleaned and photographed for sale on Ebay. Which earned us a tidy $360 (including delivery to the Gold Coast), by the way. Not bad!
So then we were left sinkless. We filled up a few buckets of water at the looking-a-bit strange spindly taps before Tom turned off the water at the main.
And then we moved out the sink cabinet, which allowed us free access to relocate the window properly.
With the window in its new home (and the wall boards replaced), we moved the old sink cabinet back in, and trialed Carmel in pride of place. It's quite handy that her past role as a display kitchen sink means that she's (notice she's changed sex somewhere along the way as well?) already sitting in a board that can act as a makeshift bench around the sink, until we get ourselves fancy new benchtops for the kitchen.
This is the point at which I got very excited. A new kitchen sink in front of our new kitchen window! Woohoo!
You may have noticed a slight problem with that picture, though. Because the front of the old farmhouse sink was designed to be entirely visible, the under-sink cabinet was deliberately a lot shorter than all of the other kitchen cabinets. Meaning that now, with a sink that's designed to be hidden within the cabinet, we've got a gap to fill somehow.
I thought and thought about what we could do to make that extra space fit in with the rest of the kitchen and look nice and deliberate. I considered having a little recessed nook where we could hang paper towels and dish cloths. But then I thought that it's probably the worst place for those things, since it's not uncommon for water to drip down from the sink if someone rinses something a bit too enthusiastically, and soggy paper towels are never fun.
And then I had a brainwave! Instead of building in something at the top of the short cabinet, we could instead build in some shelves at the bottom where I could store baskets of potatoes and onions!
So we drew an extremely technical plan (the things that look like udders on the left are sinks, just thought you might like that clarified)...
And yet again, my obliging husband got to work. First step was cutting off a bit of extra timber from the existing cabinet to make it a nice flat surface.
And then he built what we now affectionately call "The Basket Case", because we needed a way to refer to it (as the future home of baskets containing potatoes) so we understood what the other person was referring to when we talked about it. No in-progress shots, I'm afraid. Its design is simple enough, although it takes a ridiculous amount of time to construct something like this. Much more than it should! Lots of measuring and checking and re-measuring and checking and cutting and re-measuring and checking... you get the idea.
We made sure that there was a cut-out area at the back for all of the plumbing bits and pieces...
And Tom tested its ability to bear weight...
And then we carefully lifted the sink cabinet on top. It fits perfectly! And brings that cabinet up to exactly the right height to match all the rest of our cabinets!
And then we slotted Carmel in on top! Thank goodness the sink cabinet is just wide enough for Carmel's two bowls to fit inside it, or we would have been in trouble.
Then came the really fun part. Plumbing. This is where we discovered that the big sink bowl took up most of the depth of the sink cabinet, meaning that we couldn't fit a traditional S-bend drain pipe underneath it.
I toddled off to Bunnings in search of something that would be a bit shallower but still perform the same job as a normal S-bend. And thankfully I found this option!
It leaves just less than four fingers' distance to the bottom of the cabinet.
But it works! And that's all that matters!
The final icing on the cake for our new sink was a new tap. We splurged a little bit on a decent quality (but still simple) one for about $200 from The Builders Warehouse, and compared with the under-sink plumbing, the installation process for it was pretty darn simple!
Easy for me to say of course, my job consisted of turning it on when we were done. Ah the wonder of running water!
Every time I use that tap I'm so relieved that we finally have a proper kitchen sink arrangement, not two old outdoor taps sticking up in mid-air! This renovation process has certainly taught me to be grateful for the simple things in life like running water, electricity and a working gas stove top!
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