Two well-aged kitchen basins, with rough edges.
Farm sinks come in many materials these days due to their amazing popularity. It’s not difficult to understand why a large, relatively deep basins of durable material would be received enthusiastically since our kitchens now seem to handle more and more. Perhaps I’m just an incurable romantic or just overly fond of vintage and antiques, but farm sinks with character developed by age and use always speak to me. The faucets intrigue me, too.
The old black stone sink in this Dutch country kitchen [top] simply rests on a board with a curtain below used to hide the plumbing. It almost has a makeshift quality. Cabinet hardware is mismatched and it wouldn’t be Holland without blue-and-white Delft tiles which could not make a more informal back splash. On seeing this beauty, I immediately fixated on the simple but beefy spigot that may have been original to the kitchen and was simply boxed in, while newer-looking faucets have been plunked down on the deck.
A Paris loft, converted from a former haberdashers store, features a wonderful old sloped farm sink – likely marble – mostly integrated into a plastered kitchen wall. A pair of whimsical faces-in-the-moon hot and cold water faucet spouts, found at a flea market (it’s France after all) rise to the level of sculpture though it’s not at all clear how they function. No handles are visible.
An overall view of the kitchen reveals how narrow the ancient sink actually is, and how cleverly it links an adjacent counter to the peninsula.
