Tag Archives: farmhouse sink

About that Kitchen Semi-Reveal Photo

Posted on March 3, 2012 by | Leave a comment

In last Tuesday’s post, the photo was about an owl. But I realize the owl filled maybe 2% of the photo and the rest was … a kitchen, a kitchen in the India apartment:

And I realized I’ve never shown much here after 1 1/2 years of blathering about the apartment, dining table and chair inspiration, Tuscan kitchens, farmhouse sinks, faucets and copper things, and blah blah blah. Not to mention buying a lot of stuff at HomeGoods. Meanwhile things have been happening for real in the apartment.

To come clean, keeping secrets about the state of things has been kind of intentional. Why?

I don’t have pretty photos to share. Don’t we all want our photos to be pretty?

While I was in Chennai, the kitchen progress didn’t reach a photo-worthy stage. The kitchen mostly looked like this:

I had arrived bright-eyed and hopeful that we’d cook dinners there within a few days. People had been working in the kitchen for six months so we’re in the final home stretch, right? Ha ha HA. After three weeks, my expectations shrank to hoping for a 2′ x 2′ section of countertop where I could do a staged close-up: yellow Tuscan cannisters from Sur La Table lined up on the granite, next to the copper farmhouse sink and the bronze faucet, beige and copper tile backsplash in the background, a few spice bottles and the edge of a colorful French jacquard dish towel for accents … all giving the illusion that the whole kitchen was nice beyond the confines of the photo. But we didn’t even get to 2′ x 2′ of completed and clean kitchen!

The last time I saw the kitchen, a few men were standing on counters, spraying noxious fumes to “finish” the cabinets, and other men were on the floor sanding a wood strip that we wound up scrapping.

So knowing that, here is what I have to share for now …

The hammered copper farmhouse sink is installed:

You can get many styles of copper farmhouse sinks from places like Copper Sinks Online, but ours was custom-made to size in Delhi by a company that manufactures copper sinks for U.S. retailers. We wanted to eliminate the expense of shipping from the U.S. to India. Our crew had never seen a farmhouse sink before! We had to play YouTube videos of farmhouse sink installations for them. We assured them the installation would be secure. But can you see that wood platform under the sink? Our carpenter did not agree that our instructions would hold the sink (this from the guy who had never seen a farmhouse sink before) so after my husband left India, the carpenter added that platform contraption underneath the sink. It’s too late to remove it now. Oh well. We could probably stand in that sink and it won’t move anywhere now.

Our carpenter built all the cabinets on-site. The granite and most tile was sourced in Chennai. We found backsplash accent tiles at Home Depot that we hauled over in a suitcase — tiles that we found for a penny when a lucky rainbow led to Home Depot, true story!

These are the tiles from Chennai and Home Depot, plus the faucet from Studio 41, when my husband and nephew shopped for granite. You can see a strip of “braided” accent tile from Home Depot that’s shiny copper to tie in with the copper farmhouse sink:

Here’s a shot of tiles installed in the kitchen. But, do you notice something:

That top row there. Lookin’ a little different. While we were in Chennai, we were on-site supervising every move. Then we left for three days to shop for furnishings in Cochin antique shops. During that time, they brought someone in to finish the tile, to lay out the top row which had been missing. And … ugh … no words needed. I think what happened is, terra cotta dust was everywhere from electricians drilling into the plaster and brick walls. Maybe the tile guy got his fingers covered with terra cotta dust, then used his fingers to smooth grout. Which he shouldn’t have used fingers for that, as the grout texture is obviously smushed like he did. Our architect was dismayed and agreed this would be ripped out and re-done. What was this tile guy thinking?!? No lucky rainbow for us the day he was working in the kitchen, huh?

So this is how it is, three steps forward, one step backward. Eventually we will get it done and there will be pretty pictures to share.

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A Faucet Goes to India

Posted on September 13, 2011 by | 1 Comment

 a blogger needed a faucet that would go with a copper sink. She needed the faucet by the end of a certain weekend. Because by the time the clock struck midnight that Sunday, a guest would be at her house, and then after that her husband would go to Minneapolis for business, then after that he would go to Miami for business, then after that he would go back to India for  business and to supervise a kitchen installation. And for that last trip, there’s gotta be a faucet in the suitcase. Little boys and girls, you don’t have to live this way if you don’t want to. Apparently these people are crazy-nutso. And they do get tired.

So the blogger and her husband found the Cucina Vivaldi faucet in San Marco Bronze before the chariot turned into a pumpkin:

This pretty faucet will be paired with a hand-hammered copper sink that some nice people are making for the blogger and her husband, and are shipping from New Delhi to Chennai in time for the kitchen installation. These nice people manufacture many copper sinks sent to the U.S., so the sink is a great price when you get it from the source. Please know that the blogger and her husband did not choose this Cucina brand because they’re creating a Tuscan style kitchen!! They are not that goofy. Sometimes things just turn out that way by serendipity.

So the blogger and her husband went to Studio 41 in Highland Park, Illinois which is in Chicagoland, because they were customers there once before.  They found Studio 41 has great selection and service. They strolled together through the displays, and they found a few kitchen faucets they liked. But the blogger knows the brands and she knows the prices — you learn things like this through experience and don’t even have to ask after awhile. It all made her feel queasy. She was in the mood for a bargain. So she wasn’t sure if she would find The Chosen Faucet to Go to India here. You may wonder, why didn’t the blogger take her husband to Home Depot for a faucet on sale? Well, because they needed to talk with salespeople who know their stuff to be sure the faucet would work with what the India plumber told them to get. They needed a bit of hand-holding. No that’s not like boyfriend-girlfriend hand-holding, it’s a figure of speech. What’s a figure of speech? Ummmmmm … you know, like when you say something that sounds like what it is, but it’s really not. ??? Sorry, I’m confusing you. Let’s get back to the story.

So then the blogger and her husband noticed an “Outlet” sign. Hmmm. What’s over there? Great deals, that’s what was over there. After digging through a few boxes, they found the most perfect faucet – it’s what they were looking for all along and at a fantastic price. Actually it wasn’t 100% what the blogger was looking for, but sometimes you can’t get everything exactly the way you want it, and you compromise because some parts of what you found are really good, and so you decide to be very happy with what you found. That’s what you do if you’d rather live in la-la land than blah-blah land or wah-wah land. And the blogger likes to be an annoying Pollyanna that way.

At this point, the blogger and her husband are in the mood for quality things at fantastic prices, as they believe such a thing is possible when you both work at it and get a bit lucky. India is not the bargain-land they thought it would be. They are swimming against the tide with their style preferences. They are going for a country look in a sea of contemporary. So their choices are few. Imagine the inefficiencies of everything in a different land – traffic, distribution channels, communication – while looking for a design needle in a haystack. It’s not easy. No, not at all.

But what really pushed them to start buying more items in the U.S. and hauling them via suitcases to India is the risk of buying from retailers in India. The blogger’s husband ordered some kitchen backsplash tiles with yellow/orange in the accent tiles, because he saw them at the store last October and liked them. But when the tiles were delivered, they were pink! But the blogger’s husband was back in the U.S. when the tiles were delivered, and no one working in the house ever looked at the tiles. No one knew pink tiles were piled in the house. Once the husband went back to India months later, he found that the retailer believes that the fact that the color is different is not an issue. The design is the same, so it’s the same tile. But, it’s pink, the husband sputtered. That’s not the same tile. Yes, it is, the retailer says. They don’t want to take the tiles back. And oh, that’s just one example of the problems. They also have an extra toilet. A retailer sent a toilet that won’t work to the contractor, and won’t take the toilet back. Maybe the design blogger and her husband could turn the extra toilet into a planter on the terrace? What would you do with an extra toilet? They need the equivalent of Craig’s List in Chennai to get rid of this stuff! Does anyone know if that exists in Chennai-land? There have been other losses due to various things. This all adds up — not just financial loss, but stress, headaches, and constant debating with people are all costs too.

So you may think there would be risks to hauling a faucet from the U.S. to install in a kitchen all the way on the other side of the planet. That’s true, it may not work. But the plumber in India-land said that as long as the blogger and her husband get something compatible with a 1/2″ thread, it will work. And so that’s what they got. And as good consumers, they also asked Studio 41 about the return policy for outlet items. Due to the circumstances, the nice people at Studio 41 put a note in their customer file. If the faucet is incompatible, they will still be able to return it as long as it wasn’t installed. Yay! Plus, the blogger and her husband wouldn’t have found this faucet on such deep discount in India. They would have had to pay top dollar. Or, in India-land, top rupees.

We hope there is a happy ending to this story.

The End.

(Once Upon a Time image from Elegant Word Art.)

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What Faucet Goes with a Copper Sink?

Posted on September 12, 2011 by | 7 Comments

It was The Weekend of the Kitchen Faucet. By Sunday night, we had to have The Chosen One.

A major deciding factor for faucet finish is that the farmhouse sink is hammered copper. I was leaning toward dark oil rubbed bronze or other very dark finish. We’ve never boarded the ORB Bandwagon before. But it seemed right for this. My instincts for using a darker faucet finish with a copper sink were confirmed with research. I giggle writing that because in my day job, research is scientific, not finding  pictures via Google Images, Pinterest and Houzz!

Here are results of my “research” …

From this collection, the darkest faucet is most successful with a copper sink, and the slightly darker faucet is fine. The antique gold faucet, not so much. Faucets with copper sinks from bathtubsandmore.com:

Clearly I prefer high contrast. This next photo I’ve seen all over. I don’t know where it’s originally from but the faucet is cute as all heck  (uh-huh, that’s a technical term of endearment):

Here’s a vanity, oil rubbed bronze faucet and copper sink assembled at Canton Antiques:

ORB faucet with hammered copper sink posted in a Gardenweb That Home Site discussion forum:

The bar sink above is from a gorgeous kitchen. Here’s another photo from this kitchen. They say they got their copper items at Copper Sinks Online.

Copper Sinks Online also sells many faucets that they say look good with copper sinks.

From FaucetDepot:

Shown at Home Renovation Guide:

Shown at Rachiele, a copper sink with a Waterstone Towson faucet. I saw this faucet during our shopping this past weekend and really liked it:

Shown at 4 Kitchen Sinks, a Kembla copper farmhouse sink with ORB faucet:

… and they show another combo:

This combo from Signature Hardware is really fun for a bar area:

From House Beautiful, a French Country kitchen copper prep sink and oil rubbed bronze faucet:

Posted by a reviewer at Buzzillions. Is that the ceramic rooster sold at Sur La Tabla?? Should I be concerned that I would recognize something like that?

Shown at Original Copper Sinks, very different and very cool. I love this:

Shown at Lyring, another very different and very cool goodie of a combo:

Pretty combo shown at HomeThangs.com (yes that’s “thangs” as in “twangs” I’m obsessive about correct spelling) – this site also shows some unusual designs for copper sinks:

From Diamond Spas, here’s a double bathroom sink with copper faucets:

Here we make a return trip to Canton Antiques — an assembled (one of a kind, I assume?) vanity, copper sinks and ORB faucets with country style:

Here’s a few examples from Tubz – they carry quite an inventory of copper sinks from Native Trails:

Several more Native Trails products from Sinks Faucets and More:

From Design in the Woods, this is a pretty combo of copper faucet and copper sink. Sometimes I don’t like this combo so much, but here I like it better. I’m not sure why. Maybe because the granite adds a nice break between the sink and faucet:

From Picasa album Christine Decker, here’s another nice copper sink and copper faucet combo:

From Copper Sinks Direct:

Shown at House Beautiful, this copper sink is paired with a brushed nickel faucet. It is a beautiful kitchen, but I just can’t “get into” this sink/faucet combo as much:

Nor am I into the matchy-matchy. This pic from FaucetDepot:

Another factor is the countertop color. I prefer a lighter counter than this because it’s so hard to see the faucet. Pic from Sesshu Design:

So after assembling what may be the largest bibliography of copper sinks and oil rubbed bronze faucet finishes on the Internet, what is the conclusion of such exhaustive research? The research confirms my hypothesis that copper sinks and dark finish faucets are the most pleasing combination. Although certainly “image selection bias” may be a major limitation of this study.  :)

In the next post, I’ll reveal our Chosen One — our oil rubbed bronze finish kitchen faucet to go with our hammered copper farmhouse sink. C’mon you don’t think I’ve learned anything from all these years of watching HGTV and the big reveal formula on so many shows?!? You’ll also hear why we chose to buy the faucet in the U.S. and not in India. Gotta get some heavy stuff off my chest …

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Copper Farmhouse Sink in India

Posted on August 26, 2011 by | Leave a comment

So all the hours of surfing and ogling photos online over the past year are not for naught! I shared inspiration way back when (and then again more recently) of copper farmhouse sinks, envisioning one in our Chennai kitchen. Now a hammered copper apron sink will indeed be there to bring a Tuscan farmhouse flavor to India (it’s hard to see the hammer texture here):

Yipee! My first pick was a copper sink with a diagonal basketweave pattern:

But if we’ve learned anything through this process, it’s to not pick things sight unseen. That can work in the U.S., but we’ve had disastrous results doing that in India. Even something seemingly simple like having a hardware vendor add antique finish to door handles … well, apparently this turned out far from expected, and I must spin refinishing magic when I visit the apartment.

The copper sink should fare better. My husband found a manufacturer of beautiful copper farmhouse sinks in New Delhi, amazingly down the street from his business partner there! He saw the same apron sinks that we almost got in the U.S. to ship back to India. What a small world it really is.

So he saw the hammered copper sink with his eyes and felt it with his hands, but the basketweave sink was not available to see plus it was unknown when it would be produced again, and thus hammered is our choice. At this point compromise is OK. Still gotta admit though, the basketweave is far more interesting to me. Painful to skip it. 

But there’s a plan to return to Chennai in six weeks or so to supervise installation of critical kitchen items. My husband will likely do that trip. Then six weeks after that, we’ll both return and I’m gonna — finally, finally!! — do the furniture selectin’ and the decoratin’! Including, a few more copper accents in the kitchen.

Now what I’d really like is this copper tub!

They said they ship a lot of these to the UK. Unfortunately our bathroom square footage is already spoken for. Hmmm … what about make like Gwyneth Paltrow and put a tub in a bedroom!? Ha.

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