Kitchen Set Sink Prep

The biggest planned change to Oliver’s future kitchen set was adding a sink, because it required cutting a hole in the original cabinet counter - something that could not easily be undone. One wrong cut, one wrong move, and we’d be in serious trouble.

The plan was to buy a small stainless mixing bowl to use as the actual sink basin, and to be honest the trickiest part of the whole process (thanks to Mike’s superior cutting skills with the jigsaw) ended up being the hunt for the right sized bowl.

I had one at home I was willing to sacrifice that was almost the right size but it was a little too deep and not quite wide enough when we added the faucet. So I went looking for one in person, but our local Target moved all their mixing bowl stock online. Bed Bath & Beyond only sold full sets in store. William Sonoma’s were way too expensive and Walmart only had big bowls in stock. So I had to resign myself to guessing about the right size online on amazon. My too-small bowl held 1.5 quarts, so I thought that the next size up at 2.75 quarts would be better. Two days later it arrived with a dent and was WAY too wide. So I sent it back, exchanging it for the smallest bowl they had - another 1.5 quart bowl, hoping it would wider than the one I already had. I felt like the Goldilocks of metal mixing bowls - two days later the new one arrived and was just right. Third time’s a charm!

The next steps were actually fairly simple. We traced bowl rim onto a piece of paper, then brought the line in by ¼ inch to accommodate for the rim (to install the bowl-sink I will rest the rim on the counter and attach it with caulk underneath).

We taped down the circle onto the counter. If one was working with a clean workspace, the bowl could have been traced directly onto the wood, but we had a lot of tar-like glue residue from the countertop removal.

Mike drilled a pilot hole with the drill for the jigsaw blade, then used the jigsaw to cut out the sink circle. It was a little tricky because the jigsaw kept hitting the shelf over the counter when Mike was cutting out the back of the circle, but he managed to angle the saw accordingly. The bowl fit perfectly!

Once the counter is tiled and grouted, we can place the sink “permanently” in the hole with caulk under the rim.