I am not sure how to emphasize how much I miss my kitchen sink.  We left it, and a 1913 Craftsman that we had spent a year of our lives' working on, behind when we moved to the "brightside" of the mountains.  It was shiny and sparkley and stainless steel with two deep bowls and a drainboard on the right.  I loved that sink and so too did the new owner of our house. 

What made the sink so wonderful is the drainboard and my pining for that sink for the last four years and its drainboard got me thinking about questions we never ask about fixtures in our homes.  Here are a few: 

• Beyond economy and dimensional lumber, why are kitchen cabinets twenty-four inch deep?
• When did it become more fashionable or functional to replace a perfectly good built-in drain board with a plastic dish drainer?
• Why, exactly, were slipper tubs and their accompanying washable shower curtains and visible plumbing traded for sheet rock that hides the plumbing and esthetically blah laminate shower surrounds?

Hmmm?

Take 24 inch deep kitchen cabinets.  Things get lost in cabinets that deep.  Not so long ago, say a hundred years ago, kitchen cupboards were about fifteen inches deep and came with 4 doors that when you opened them and stood back a foot or two you could see every single thing in the darn thing . . . without having to bend, twist or contort our bodies to find what we were looking for.

Kitchen sinks used to have integral drainboards and back splashes that functioned really well to keep water away from wood and walls.  They were cast iron with a baked on porcelain surface that lasted for eons with minimal care and can be resurfaced / restored. 

With a clawfoot bath tub you only need a shower curtain.  Imagine no special cleaners to keep the one-piece fiberglass shower / tub combo ship shape.  Imagine no caulk.  Imagine no water leaks behind sheetrock.  Imagine no dated colors as they were always white.

All this thinking is fodder for our house that's in a state of flux . . . things need to happen -- a wall needs to come out to embrace the view . . .  a proper pantry would be a real luxury . . . . and with a few old kitchen cupboards and a stainless steel kitchen sink with a drain board the kitchen would function in bristol fashion.