I just asked my neighbor how she likes her Kohler Smart Divide, especially the surface. She now wishes she had only one bowl, even with the low divide, but says the surface is great. As to depth, it depends on your height AND the length of your arms; I recently realized mine are rather short for my height. I'm not comfortable with a sink deeper than 7 inches, but I might have to tough it as they all seem to come deeper than that. I haven't looked specifically yet, but that's my feeling.

I have had a cast iron sink in the kitchen for almost 3 years and have had no chips. The sink that I chose is linked below and although the equally divided sink is not a popular choice on this forum it works well for how I like to clean. I am 5'3.5" and the depth is perfect for me.

Here is a link that might be useful: cast iron sink

I would not do enameled cast iron for the reasons you mentioned. The chipping, and also the black marks. The shine doesn't last either. I do not know what you mean by "old world", most especially in a "new house"???? In any case, if you are talking about a traditional look, one would be a fireclay sink. It's beautiful. But there can be problems in fireclay's installation, and we have had several reports on this forum of fireclay cracking. Another traditional look is a copper sink, but you have to be comfortable with its "living finish" (I am not).

We chose a Silgranit sink instead of the stainless steel sink we initially chose. It was the best decision in our kitchen! Buh-bye to stainless steel water spots, scratches, dull film and tinny sound. Hello to totally easy cleaning, rich look, able to withstand 500 degree temps, durable as all get-out. We have the anthracite color which is a black-charcoal. It would go well with a traditional soapstone counter for example (for the "old world" look maybe?), or marble, wood, or really, anything. The black shows nothing, so we can pour wine or tomato sauce into the sink and it doesn't show (try that with enameled cast iron). And, no water spots - woo-hoo!

We have the large Super Single sink; I am just not a double-bowl sink person, but that decision is a personal one. Our sink is 9" deep, and I am 5'3". I am fine with the depth. Note that sometimes discomfort at the sink also has to do with faucet reach. Some people have discomfort with a high arch faucet, which does not protrude much into the sink, because it is hard on their backs to have to reach toward the back of the sink to rinse things, but others don't--it's an individual thing.

Anyway, do a search on this forum for "Silgranit sink", and you will see the enthusiastic posts. In any kitchen I have in the future, I will get Silgranit, and will never go back to stainless or to enamelled cast iron.

We had a white Smart Divide cast iron sink by Kohler for 5 years in our other house. It was a very cool looking and beautiful sink. People coming over commented on how pretty it was. But the center divide really was too low to serve much purpose except to keep things divided in the sink at a shallow depth.

In spite of being very careful, it did get a few small chips in it. I don't know how they happened, and of course none of my family members knew how either :)

The largest factor that stopped me from getting another beautiful cast iron sink in this house was that it developed black scuff marks all the time. I put rubber mats down in the bottom and a sink divider mat, but everytime anything like a metal pot or bowl was bumped into the sink, it left a mark. The only thing that seemed to remove the black marks was a Bar Keepers Friend type cleaner. But if you use that, after awhile it starts to dull the finish and then it stains very easy, so I only used it a few times when we had the house up for sale.

It did stain when darker foods sat for too long, and from rust in our water, but spraying with clorox clean up bleach spray and letting it sit, then using a green scrubbie made it look like new. But the bleach did nothing for the black marks.

The gist of my long-winded story is...as beautiful as a cast iron sink is, it's a more delicate and higher maintenance choice than stainless or Siligrant.

We have a fireclay farm sink in our kitchen. It's 30" and I am 5'2 and love it. Not too big, not too small. I have been using it for 9 months now and it's perfect!

I have a 36" copper single bowl sink. I can wash on one side and set things to dry on the left. The drain is in the right rear corner. I was used to a double sink. I even have a ledge inside the sink to put my cutting boards and a copper drain grid. I am only 5'2". My sink is 8" deep. I used to get a back ache with my last sink, plus washing larger things was a chore. My las sink looked good for a short time, but never looked good after a while. This one seems like it will always look good. It is relatively new, but time will tell.

Here is a link that might be useful: Large single bowl sinks