Here's a pic of my sink now.

Did you go to a big box store and just see what their enamel on steel or on iron costs? I thought that those were the most reasonable sinks, cost wise? Other than super cheap stainless.

Also, keep your eyes peeled on Craigslist, too.

Go to the Home Depot site and select Kohler cast iron white tile-in sinks.

If $250-500 is way out of your price range, you could shop on eBay. Or better yet, put off your reno.

Tile in sinks aren't that common anymore, so you'll probably have to do a special order and spend some money if you want to go that route.

However, if you are OK with doing a drop in sink on top of the tile where it sits on top, you can probably find a cast iron sink on Craigslist from a remodeler for under $100. I live in a relatively small city, and there are at least 3 white cast iron sinks on there currently. Most are in pretty good shape, and if you go the second hand route with a drop in, you can always pull it out later for a new one if you find one better. You can also try Habitat for Humanity's ReStore or any other salvage or second hand stores that might be in your locale.

Ikea sinks look nice in retro kitchens.

Ikea sinks look nice in retro kitchens.

Thank you for all your replies!

So, a tile in sink is different than an undermount sink? Forgive my ignorance! So a Blanco Silgranit would not work?

So I've looked around online, HD, ebay, CL while they are tons of sinks, finding a drop or tile in, 0 faucet holes, 19x32ish, for under $400 seems to be the needle in the haystack.

I'll go by my ReStore today (didn't even know these places existed!) and maybe I'll get lucky.

Look at architectural salvage web sites for porcelain kitchen sinks like the one below. You will find hundreds of sink options that are perfect for you and affordable. I have never heard of an undermount tile-in sink. That would leave grout as the the only "counter" material over your sink in some spots. If you're going with tile (and I think you should reconsider - marble is also vintage) you need a sink that mounts on top of your tile, the (wait for it) "topmount." These sites also sell vintage counter tops, etched, worn, wonderful marble and soapstone.

Here is a link that might be useful: Salvage

Do you want to keep your wall-mount faucet? I think the "no faucet holes" might be the sticking point, because there are white tile-in and drop-in sinks (ceramic and cast iron) for well under $400, but the ones I am finding all have faucet holes.

There might be a way to use an undermount sink with a tile counter, but I can't tell you for sure. It probably depends on whether the right kinds of edge pieces are available.

If you want to look at sinks with faucet holes, try the Kohler cast iron sinks or the Ikea Domsjo sink (ceramic). (The prices on the Kohler site are not the actual retail prices so don't be put off by those.) If you are interested in Silgranit, have a look in person before you buy one online. The look and feel of that material did not appeal to me, but others here like it. Yes, acrylic would look like a plastic sink.

I am going to link pawa's kitchen reveal so you can see the sink she used in her 50's kitchen redo.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pawa's retro kitchen reveal

Thank you for all the replies.

First stop was Lowes. Their only option was to special order the Kohler sink I've seen online (Kohler K-6625). Maybe this sink is best option, it's as low as $488 at HD online. Still $500 is a big chunk of the total budget.

I stopped by my local ReStore. I've driven by it hunderds of times, but didn't know what it was. A very cool place, and I may have found a light for my kitchen, but no luck on the sink.

The architectural salvage sites are wonderful. I'll keep browsing these. But comments like this "Very worn a few pits and chips as well, but still a little life in it" with a $400+ price tag is daunting. I also don't know enough about remodels to figure out how to make a beautiful sink like the one above fit in my 24" deep counter.

The real problem is I have a lot of cosmetic things to do to my new house (paint, flooring, bath), but very little experience or money!

Oh, I wanted to add that I agree, looking for a sink with no faucet holes is really what is making it difficult. Lots of options with faucet holes out there. But I'd really like to keep the wall mounted faucets. For one messing with plumbing will be an added expense. Also, I really like to look of the wall mounted faucet.

If your total counter depth is 24" (not 24" for the cabinet plus a little more for counter overhang), then yes, it might be a bit of a challenge to find a sink that fits.

I have another thought. Somehow I missed the point that this is a brand new house for you. I know all about the things that a 1949 house can need (my house was built then too). I would suggest focusing first on any safety/structural repairs that are needed. With luck the previous owner took care of it all and there aren't any, but if your roof needs repair or your windows leak or you have moisture behind cracked wall/floor tile or if turning on the MW and DW at the same time blows the fuse, etc etc etc, then those are the (boring and expensive) things to take care of first. To be perfectly honest, from the look of your sink the previous owner might not have kept everything in great repair; but you probably have a pretty good idea from your home inspection.

It might be hard to replace things in your kitchen if you have original built-in-place cabinets that are not the same size as modern ones. (Countertop shouldn't be a problem if it'll be custom fit, as with tile.) The usual suggestion here on GW is to live with a kitchen for a while before doing anything costly to it, so that you can assess how the layout is working for you and decide if you will need to do a more extensive renovation down the road. This will let you avoid spending lots of money twice. With that in mind, have you considered having your sink reglazed? It would probably be much less expensive than buying a new one and replumbing for a deck-mounted faucet, and less trouble than trying to get a new sink to fit. The reglazing wouldn't last forever, but when we had to have a chip in our brand new tub fixed [sigh], they told us it should last 10-15 years. That would buy you plenty of time to work on everything else, and you wouldn't have to replace your vintage sink with another vintage sink (which might have also been reglazed).

So how is your bathroom? Pink? :) We were lucky -- ours was black and white tile. Cracked and rotted underneath but not ugly. (Actually I like pink bathrooms too though I think they came along a little later.) These 1940's houses can have a lot of charm and if yours is like ours, it's kind of a blank slate, so you can do a lot with paint and decor to make it all your own.

Yep, brand new to me, and my first house!

I'm very fortunate that overall the house appears to be in great shape, it's just cosmetic issues. The home inspection went very well, for a house this age. The roof is about 10 yrs old, it was partially replumbed, and a lot of electrical work was done. So ironically, it's the cosmetic stuff that was ignored. It was a big relief because I had to walk away from a beautiful 1924 Craftsman after the home inspection because there were so many serious safety issues.

The market in my (low) price range, in my area (SoCal) is incredibly competitive. So finding this house with only cosmetic issues was really fortunate. But I naively thought since the house was so small (750 sq ft) that I could fix it up on a shoe string budget. But as I'm sure everyone reading this knows, it's not working out that way!

I've thought about reglazing. The rough quote I got from sending a picture was $125 to reglaze + $50 to remove the peeling old glaze. But the biggest worry is no local company I've found offers a warranty on sinks. So to spend $175, since no warranty is offered, it will obviously be a limited lifespan, and when I can afford to replace have to break the new tile countertops, I'd like to avoid that if possible.

I totally get the logic to live with something for a while and then being able to know exactly what I want. But on the other hand I fortunately don't have to move in right now, I can continue to live with my mom for as long as I need. I've lived through full interior painting and flooring, and that really sucked. Also, I travel a lot for work. Over the next 3 months I'll be out of town for 10 of those weeks. So I feel like if I can have the work done while I'm not really able to live there anyway, I should take advantage of it. (The person doing the work is known and reliable & my mom and other friends can handle anything urgent that comes up and I'm away.)

My bathroom lacks any character what so ever! What I need to do in there is replace the weird, worn out and grimy wall liner. I'm not sure if it's original or added in the 60's to 70's. no who's seen the house has seen anything like it. It's like a fiberglass shell, but only like 1/8" thick. My original idea was to replace it with a new shell from HD, because those are cheap. But of course those are all standard 60" and my space is 59". So now I'm going to go with tile, I think. I'm thinking all white tile with baby blue trim and maybe a few blue sea life relief tiles.

Thanks again for all the advice!

I'm going to go back today and take some more exact measurements of the sink, as well.

This is the listing photo of the kitchen

Kitchen now, weird light reflections in the pic

Here's the bath with no personality

what size is it and when to you need it? I might have something for free (plus shipping from NoCal) if you don't mind used. It's a tile in single basin cast iron sink in worn but decent condition.

One note if you are planning to do tile: I actually don't mind the tile in my kitchen, functionally not visually cause it's darn ugly tile. The big saving grace is that the grout is dark.

Wow nap ... that would be amazing!

I'm going to go by the house today and get more exact measurements, but my notes say the sink is 19x32.

The work on the house is supposed to start on 9/10. The major projects are the kitchen counters/sink, bath tub walls, painting & flooring. Plus a million small issues like adding electrical outlets, adding a doggy door etc.. So painting then flooring are the last two items, so kitchen and bath have to be first. So I think I would need the sink by mid september. And I'm guessing that is too soon. :(

I just measured the inside dimensions at the top of the sink not including the lip because I can't tell how much is under the tile. It's approximately 17.5 by 27.5 inches. My counters are very shallow. It has an offset drain centered front to back on the left but I'm thinking it could be flopped. I love my sink. One kitchen designer who came out to my house thought it was in decent enough condition that I should keep it to save money. I just don't think it has another 20 years left in it and I don't want to have to reconfigure things when it starts looking bad.

Regarding timing: Mid september would be way too early at this point. I'm still trying to find a contractor for my kitchen remodel. It seems the industry has exploded with opportunity in the last few months and I'm having a hard time even getting contractors to give me estimates.

Oh, that is too bad about the timing, because your sink would fit perfectly! Thank you so much for your offer though.

I remeasured everything today. Now I think I have even bigger issues.

Counter depth: 23"
Inside: 29" x 16.5"
To tile lip: 31.5" x 18.5"

So I think I have an additional challenge on top of the no faucet holes in finding a narrow sink?