Imagine you are a right-handed person, scrubbing a baked-on cookie sheet. You're holding the cookie sheet tipped up with your left hand, and scraping and scrubbing toward the drain -- easily done because the drain is in the right rear corner of your sink! If it were in the center, the cookie sheet would more likely cover the drain -- you wouldn't be able to set it down flat to scrub without covering that drain -- a colander with vegetables would have to straddle that center drain instead of sitting securely in the bottom of the sink pitched toward the right rear center. The crusty pan that is soaking in your sink does not cover the drain that you need to quickly rinse something else. It's just better design. If you are a left-handed person, you might want the drain in the left corner. Lynn

I have a stainless single-basin Vigo undermount that measures 32" wide by 19" deep...that will hopefully be installed today (by me). This style of sink doesn't have an island or an insert for the faucet to be mounted, so a 22" deep sink wouldn't work for "standard" installations -- our faucet needs about 3" of clearance behind it for the handle to operate fully. So, from the front of the counter, we have: 2 inches of counter lip (on the skinny side) 19 inches of sink 1 inch (approx.) between sink and faucet hole 2 inches (approx) for faucet body 3 inches (approx) rear clearance for faucet handle We had to make the counters 27" deep to accommodate -- adding another 3 inches of sink would make a 30" deep counter, which wasn't an option in our space.

thank you all. I suppose I should specify even more because I want something that has the integral deck for mounting the faucets. I am planning on laminate counter and I think the faucet should be on the sink deck. I love the huge Franke one with the drain in the corner but I believe it is undermount only. That is the problem - there are more sinks for undermount now in this category. Thanks for the input. Tina

> New Question: if you go for the side drain, do you want the drain towards your dominant hand? Meaning, if you're right handed, do you want a sink with a right handed drain? And should a drain be on the side of the dishwasher? Or do these things not matter? I'm right-handed and prefer the drain in the left rear. That way, I can use my right hand to sweep food waste into the drain in a natural motion. The side the dishwasher is on is mostly irrelevant. Most of the undersink plumbing is from the disposer (which is directly under the drain), the hot and cold water valves and intake hoses, the drain, the retracted flex hose for hand sprays, and soap and instant-hot dispensers if you have them. The only dishwasher plumbing in the sink cabinet is a flexible hose leading from the dishwasher to the drain (via an air gap if you have one), which doesn't take up much space and can be fastened to the back wall of the cabinet, out of the way, and probably a thin copper tube leading from the hot water valve.