My existing counter is higher than my (fully working) window by about 4 inches: with the Formica backsplash, the whole thing makes about a 8 inch well. The counter and backsplash just go straight across the wall, roughly cut out a little for the trim. If I took the sink cupboard out, I'd have a normal window and windowsill. I bet it's much more common than you realize, but you only notice it if someone does something conspicuous to call your attention to it. I honestly think you don't have to do anything cutesy. I definitely wouldn't be pouring water blind down the back of my sink unless I KNEW for sure where it was going. And fake ivy is just ... horrible. I stash my bottle of dish soap and a couple of other tall, inert objects down the back of the well. I'm planning on keeping it when I redo, just maybe with a little shelf atop the backsplash, but so I can still open the window. Nobody wants a sink down around their knees, or an extra couple thousand in unnecessary cabinetry. Just put everything where it needs to be. It'll be fine.

Since you asked "what would you do?", what I would do (which isn't what others here would do, and I'm not criticizing them) is to fix it with trim. Honestly, I don't think anyone will notice unless you point it out to them. My front door is trimmed below the two windows next to it and I never noticed before this post. I am very particular about a lot of things, but this isn't a battle I would choose since the cost to change is so high and the the resulting fix is so small. When we were building our home 14 years ago, we had a couple of minor probems, both of which our GC offered to pay to fix. We declined since neither were a big deal to us. If it were a question of safety, that's another story. I understand those who say make them fix it. It is your money and you're paying to get what you want. But, you're obviously thinking twice about it or you wouldn't have asked the question. Economic times are tough, and it could be one of the lowest paid workers on the job who has to end up paying for this error. Dee

My husband is one problem. He didn't know what type of flooring to use. He either wanted to use tile or vinyl. He didn't know what type of heating to use at the time. He did decide to go with in-floor heating. He wouldn't go with me to look at stuff to help decide on what to do. He made changes to our house plans after they were done. He is pretty much the type of guy that waits till the last minute to do something which didn't help our architect either. He was trying to pay as much out of pocket as possible cause he still has a big college loan and I'm a stay at home mom. Pretty much some things we didn't know depending on how much money we had. He has finally decided to get a loan to finish the house up due to problems with living with his parents. Mainly his mom keeps trying to smoke near our son when she brought the problem upon herself for not signing the land over sooner so we could of been moved out. She thought the economy was going to crash. We were going to buy a house and all of them on the market were expensive for something that needed completely gutted. My husband also wanted to have a piece of land his dad and grandfather both owned. Sorry for the rambling. After looking more into the windows I decided I would do a 48" tall window with the top of it the same height as the rest on the side of the house. That would give me room below the window for the cabinets with counters and any type of flooring. The window will be slightly above the counter but not by much and will give us room if we did go with vinyl and decided to put tile in later to raise the cabinets. Our top cabinets I will be putting to the ceiling with shelves below so I can remove or raise the shelves to keep the 18" of space in between.

cleo- Changing the window is definately not an option. These were not cheap windows- about $1000 a pop, and to change the size would put me into custom sizing for even more money, and I wouls have to deal with the masonry. I did some more searching on the web and I think I have determined that I wouldn't mind the "well" that would be created- I would just put some plants there. Mindstorm- the layout I am thinking of (I will post as soon as I have clean copy- it is all scribbles at the moment) actually makes a lot of sense. The window just happens to be in the middle of the wall that I want to put the sink on, and I like the idea of the sink at the window for the same reasons everyone else does- light, symmetry, watch the kids in the backyard, etc. Also, it creates a nice cleanup zone/dish storage zone along that wall, which happens to be parallel to the table, so easy to set the table, etc. I do agree that upon thinking about it, I don't think that the lowered sink would be a great option. As everyhting in this process is a series of compromises, i think having the sink at this window with the counters 4" is a better compromise than many of the others I have considered. Also, I would have a small prep sink as well on my range wall, so this sink would only be for cleanup. We have a pretty busy schedule today-t-ball, b-day party- so I am hoping I can get my layout posted tonight or tomorrow.