Realistically what's the smallest sink I can put in a 12' cabinet

14 years ago

I am looking for a small copper bar sink. I would rather not have a vessel sink. I think I'm going to have to put it in a 12 inch cabinet. I am really confused by the sizing because many of the 12" wide or round sinks I see are 12 inches only because of the wide lip that goes around the top outside part. Since they taper down so much, would I be able to get one of these to fit in a 12" cabinet. It will be dropped in and not undermounted. I think I asked this question awhile back but unfortunately can no longer pull up the post, and I can't find my notes on it. So sorry for asking the same questions over and over again.

Featured Answer

julie94062

14 years ago

Boy, I can relate :-) I had such a tough time finding a small sink and a small faucet for my bar! The sink here is too big for you, but I'll describe my situation and hopefully it will shed some light for you.

Here's mine:

Just to give you an idea, I have full overlay (custom) doors/drawers. The sides of each cabinet box is 3/4" thick. My boxes are 17 1/2". That's the exterior width. Inside, the width is 16 (17 1/2 minus the two sides of 3/4 each). I have a 12" sink (12" inner dimension, 14" outer dimension). The width of the bar area is 52".

So your 12" cabinet would only actually have 10 1/2 inches to fit the sink into. And depending on how deep your cabinets are, you'll have to figure out if there's room for the faucet. Remember you have to take off the 3/4" in the front and back, too.

There's a 2" filler on the left before the cabinet starts. You can see it's a bit of a squeeze to fit the faucet in. It starts just where the inside of the cabinet starts. I've undermounted the sink, but it has a 1" edge all the way around and can be dropped in.

I ended up with a Belle Foret BFC5KITORB copper sink and Belle Foret Faucet BFN26001ORB . I got them both at Amazon. That was the smallest sink they had in copper. I did find one that is smaller (10" OD, 8" ID) at Copper Sinks Direct

Hopefully someone else will chime in if I'm explaining this wrong. I don't know if other cabinets have the same 3/4" thickness as mine. You'd have to check the cabinets you're getting.

HTH! Good luck!

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (8)

lisaslists2000
14 years ago
What is on either side of it? More cabinets with a counertop that goes across all?
Lisa
ncamy
Original Author
14 years ago
Well I wanted to put the sink cabinet next to the wall but I don't have to.
Related Discussions
Should I put in a laundry sink, and if so-- what type?
Q
Comments (9)
I bought one of those all in one units from Lowes but later returned it. I had to pick through the ones on the shelf to find the one that was least scratched. The ABS plastic ones are not the same quality as the cast acrylic or fibreglass ones you see. I figured if it was all scratched up now, who knows how it would look after we start using it. The cabinet is also very small for the space I had set aside for and made cheaply. Plus the quality of the faucet didn't seem like it would hold up in the long run. There was very little reviews either good or bad so I figured it wasn't such a great value afterall otherwise someone would have posted at least one good review. You pay for what you get and with all the work I was doing to get my laundry room set up, the last thing I wanted was an all in one that would need replacing at some point, but who knows? I went with a stainless steel utility sink, 20x20 inch and 10 inch deep and couldn't be happier. Picked up a Delta kitchen faucet for it and overall am pleased with the look and ease of maintenance. These days you don't need such a huge sink as the new washers that are HE compliant don't need to empty tons of water(mine drains to a stacked pipe). Now I can use that sink for just about anything, whereas I never felt comfortable about soaking clothes in something where old paint was staining my cheap plastic laundry tub. Oh yes, the sink is housed in a bigger cabinet and taller to meet up with the height of the washer/dryer and I had the sink slightly offset in the laminate countertop so I could get a small area for a side counter. Very happy I went with a SS sink.
...See More
Smallest cabinet to hold Kohler 45-inch stages
Q
Comments (5)
Ours will be a beverage/prep sink. Bowl size is around 20x18, which is what I want, but my Dear Partner can't live without his double-bowl 36" sink for dishes. Check out rjr's review -- you can see that the Stages has a bracket on the underside of the drainboard (where you can mount an optional pull-out accessory rack in the cab below), which is another inch or so. You can see in the photos how rjr modified the cabinet drawer to accommodate the bracket. And forget what I said about the countertop (duh): the Stages is undermount, so the drainboard will be nearly 2 inches lower than the bottom of your counter, plus the inch or so for that bracket, so you'll need a 38"+ high cabinet to get a normal DW under there. Even if you could remove the bracket, that means you're looking at cabinets at least 2" higher than normal. I'm actually putting my prep sink in a 40" tall bar/peninsula, but everyone in my family is freakishly tall. Good luck!
...See More
42" sink base cabinet for apron sink...can I do 36" sink?
Q
Comments (21)
Nicole: If the end pieces I pictured above were missing, you'd be looking at an exposed cabinet style and the top and bottom rail on each end and a hole between the three. The drawer end covers the void and makes your eye continue the line from the doors upward. A flush piece in the void would have to fit perfectly, be finished matched, would not continue the line, and would therefore look stupid. You're not going to find any pictures because no one would ever go through that much work for something that's not going to look good. Here's a full size 33" apron sink properly mounted in a 36" cabinet. The distance from the cabinet end to the sink apron end will be 3" on your job, not the 1 1/2" pictured here which I admit doesn't look too bad. That sink was replaced by this short apron Elkay Quartz Luxe. The bottom of the apron now lines up with the adjacent drawer bottom, and there is virtually no cabinet face exposed which I think looks better. I made the customer find a factory painted color match trim (you provide, you agree color matches) which I installed above and flush with the top of the middle rail to fill the gap. That didn't have to fit nearly as nicely as flush side fillers would have to, because only the person reaching under the sink will ever see it.
...See More
Smallest single sink/cabinet size for small kitchen?
Q
Comments (25)
I know I am bumping an older thread. Researching design options for my small kitchen renovation, and this is one of the threads I encountered. jakuvall listed some considerations for small kitchens. One specifically I do not understand. -Using a very wide blind corner with a mechanism like the Hafele Lemans with the sink in the same cabinet. Blinds often (almost always) increase total usable storage in small kitchen over susans and the mechanism serves the same purpose and allows the otpion of gaining back a drawer. I cannot understand this. So, you would use a large blind in a corner, but use the portion > ~24Ã¢ÂÂ from the wall (~24 Ã¯Â¿Â½Ã¯Â¿Â½" 27Ã¢ÂÂ depending on cab length) for the sink location, possibly extending the sink back towards the wall, into the corner (overlapping) a bit? I do not understand how this gains you a drawer, though, unless you consider the Hafele mechanism a Ã¢ÂÂdrawerÃ¢ÂÂ. I emailed jackuvall asking for a reply in this thread, but anyone feel free to comment. Thanks.
...See More
Buehl
14 years ago
And the other side?
ncamy
Original Author
14 years ago
I have 52.5 inches total to work with. 24" for a refrigerator and the remainder to be a double deep drawer stack (for the liquor) and the sink base. I would prefer the sink base to be as small as possible because it is the least useful although I am thinking about putting a rollout shelf on the bottom so that we can use the space all the way back and store infrequently used tall bar items such as a sangria pitcher that is used only once every year or so. If I can keep it to 12 inches then my drawers will be 15 inches wide. I am going to use a frameless cabinet here to get as much space as I can. Suggestions?
julie94062
14 years ago
ncamy, I posted before reading your last reply. Sorry! What kind of cabinets are you getting? Fully overlay, frameless, inset?

I'm only familiar with mine, full overlay, but remember you have to take into account the sides of the cabinet boxes and the sides of the drawers themselves (1/2" each side?).

The drawer front might be 15", but the actual inside width of the drawer (the space you can use) ends up being 12 1/2.

Also, I don't know if the 2" filler on each side is something they normally do, or if it was so that the doors couldn't open wider without hitting the walls on each side.
User
14 years ago
A 12" cabinet is too small for any standard type sink. Even a 15" (12" bowl) bar sink will barely fit a 15" cabinet and you'll have to scoop the sides. Now, if you're doing custom, you could do a trough sink (maybe 8" wide and 15" long) horizontally if you were willing to sacrifice the top drawer in the drawer base. The drain would be at the one end where the full height door would be. The cabinet maker would have to design the cabinet as a single piece with the proper supports for the countertop, but it would be doable by a custom maker. You could even make the full height door pretty small, so that the drain is pretty much the only thing in the cabinet, and that way your drawers would be larger.
ncamy
Original Author
14 years ago
The sink I'm looking at has a 10 inch diameter bowl and a 1 inch rim which makes the diameter 12". What would have to be done to make that fit in a 12 Inch cabinet? The sink will be drop in and NOT UNDERMOUNTED.

Realistically what's the smallest sink I can put in a 12' cabinet

julie94062

Comments (8)

lisaslists2000

ncamy
Original Author

Related Discussions

Buehl

ncamy
Original Author

julie94062

User

ncamy
Original Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Realistically what's the smallest sink I can put in a 12' cabinet

julie94062

Comments (8)

lisaslists2000

ncamyOriginal Author

Related Discussions

Buehl

ncamyOriginal Author

julie94062

User

ncamyOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

ncamy
Original Author

ncamy
Original Author

ncamy
Original Author