Get as large a sink as your sink base cabinet will allow. A 30" sink will undermount into a 30" cabinet.

We went to 30" from 20" in a small kitchen, and it's wonderful. You could go bigger, but it's felt more than sufficient for our needs over many years.

@Joseph Corlett, LLC it's a gut reno, so I can do any size sink - but just making sure I'm right-sizing what I DO get.

@artemis78 you can understand my pain of the 20" size. I am glad to hear it hasn't felt like overkill! I am pretty sure I wouldn't go any BIGGER than 30, but just wanted a gut check on what is a typical sink size.

I can't speak to typical, but the most common sizes when we did our kitchen years ago seemed to be 30", 33", and 36," so 30" felt like it was on the smaller side. (That said, our whole kitchen was on the smaller side for GW/Houzz--it's about 10'x13', with an extra 7'x13' eat-in/mudroom area that we opened up into, but that isn't really functionally part of the kitchen.) We briefly considered 27" but wanted to be able to fit trash and recycling into the sink cabinet also, so at that point we were looking at 36" cabinets and it didn't make sense to go smaller than 30" for the sink--we would have ended up with extra counter on the "clean dishes" side of our kitchen, where we didn't really need it. (As built, we have about 27" of counter sitting over the dishwasher, which is just enough for a couple of dish racks.) I really like that I can set a large pot in the sink and still have room to use the other side for other purposes, since we only have one sink.

@artemis78 yes, you are my people! Also a small-scale kitchen here - hoping we can remove a wall to extend countertops but it will still be bisected on the other side because of a chimney, but removing that wall would take us from a closed 11x13 to a 17' run of appliances, counters, etc. I would also love to fit trash and recycling into the sink cabinet - would you mind sharing how you made that work? I don't think I can fit a standalone cabinet for trash pullouts.

Ha, I'm pretty sure I wrote up an entire post about it back in the Gardenweb days, so I'll see if I can dig it up! But briefly, we use the lefthand side for an 18" double Rev-A-Shelf pullout, and everything else is on the right. (Dishwasher is to the left of the sink too but the connections are pinned to the back of the cabinet so they won't interfere.) Our cabinetmaker was deeply skeptical that it would work but our plumber was game and it worked out beautifully. Caveat is that we don't have a disposal, but there were some people at the time who did and reported that they made it work too. We removed a chimney in order to have continuous counter (but it was only used for a furnace and hot water heater, so we replaced/moved those to a wall where they could vent directly). I'll try to find the old writeup of it.

We have a smaller kitchen as well, and recently remodeled. We have an odd diagonal peninsula that left our original kitchen with a nearly useless pie shaped sliver of a cabinet. We asked our cabinet maker if he could possibly reconfigure that space to be more usable. He suggested going from a 33” double sink to a 30” deep single workstation sink. We are thrilled with both the larger more usable cabinet and the single bowl workstation under mount sink. I love the front and back ledges that support accessories like a cutting board and durable silicone drain rack which is heat rated to 400°. It’s awesome being able to move hot pans to a resting spot over the sink for serving. We also had a stepped up bar set up that made the kitchen feel closed in and severely restricted counter space. We cut that wall down and are really living having a much wider expanse of quartz counters. Best of luck improving your space! It’s wonderful!

Hmm, I can't find the old thread, but here's what it looks like:

We did have to tell our plumber so that he could plan the plumbing around it (and use a sink with a center drain--though I imagine right offset would have worked too).

@artemis78 thank you so much! I dug back on your posts and there are a lot of similarities between our kitchen goals! (right down to soapstone and having room for a bigger fridge, but waiting out the existing smaller one...) It was really helpful for someone who has a small footprint and budget to work with!

@snappity LOL at the fridge--our old one is *still* there, 12 years later! It is finally supposed to be replaced this fall (it's now 26 years old--!!), but we're still trying to get someone out to run a water line for the new one.

That sounds like my experience with getting a new range - I kept waiting for my ancient coil top to die to move to induction, and it just never happened, so I finally cried uncle and gave the coil top away and bought myself the range I had been wanting - it was worth it!

I have a very small urban galley kitchen and I got a relatively large work station sink. Mine is 36"

The reason it functions well for me is that because it has the ledge it effectively extends the length of the counter. I have the solid "grid" which I generally keep on one end of the sink and use as additional counter as necessary. This includes using it to unload groceries as well has putting hand washed items or produce there to air dry.

I also have the cutting board and this obviously extends the working space of the kitchen counter as well as being a much tidier way to prep as everything is right above the sink so I don't need to wash down the counter.

The other reason why I can have a relatively large sink is because I have a drain that is at the back and to the side. Because of this the pipes don't bisect the sink cabinet so I have room for both my garbage disposal on one half AND a pull out full size trash container which means I don't have to find space for a kitchen trash container. Before I remodeled I had a nice Simple Human one but the only place for it was in front of a lower cabinet so if I needed to access anything in that area I had to move the trash can.

@Helen that is my hope! I am so glad to hear it has worked for you. I am planning on a right rear drain for whatever sink I get to maximize the space (and also because in my current tiny sink - which is basically prep size based on the standards above) - the drain will get sealed by a dirty dish if someone is needing to wash hands, etc.