I had one in my old kitchen and only ever used it to fill with ice at parties and put beer in it. My friend recently added one to her kitchen -- one of the long skinny ones and she does the same thing with it, once in a while uses it for the water feature but the big sink is right behind her so its a little much. it 's really just a cool factor, since her island is 10' long

Location is the key to using and loving one, I think. Most people who say they never use theirs have one that's on an outer location, not handy to the work spaces...more like a bar sink than a prep sink.

I barely use our clean up sink...It's the kids' territory. ;-) We use the prep sink several times a day and for several different purposes. We wash fruit and veggies, fill and drain pots, wash gooey hands, and add water to baking projects.

Mine is the on the corner of our island, which allows it to be used from both sides...The stove side, as well as the baking/traffic side of the island. So someone can cook at the stove and prep by the stove or on the end of the island, and someone else can do a baking project or make salad on the adjacent side of the island, both utilizing the sink, but not getting in each other's way. Even 3 people could do work that uses that sink while the cleanup aisle and sink are left clear for the others to load and unload dishwashers, and access dishes to set the table.

The prep sink is definitely a crucial part of making our multi-worker, big-family kitchen work. But even when I'm working alone, I love having it. It's so nice to deal with food at the sink without doing it over or beside dirty dishes.

I wholeheartedly agree with rhome about the location being the critical factor with prep sinks. Ours is right across the aisle from my stove, in the island where I do 95% of my prep work, and I use it all the time. I love having a sink that's always clean for washing food and always empty for draining pasta. Like rhome's it's accessible from two sides of the island, making it handy for others to use without squeezing past me to get to the clean-up sink. Some keys for me besides the location are that it is big enough to be useful, it has a good spray faucet for rinsing, and it has a disposal. Ours was a bit of a hassle to install, since we're on a slab, but I would do it again in a heartbeat!

my BIL uses his all the time - he's the cook there. my sister does the clean up - so she can be loading up dirty dishes while he is in his 'cook's' space preparing the f ood. He doesn't have to cross over that aisle or get in her way.

and she isn't in his way while he is preparing the meal. There's only the 2 of them but it sure works for them!

I just watch when i go there for a meal. after dinner i help her clear the table.

I love my prep sink for all the reasons stated above...plus I like having it near my cooktop so I don't have to cross a busy aisle or crossing into the Cleanup Zone when emptying a pot of boiling water... It's used at least as much as the Cleanup Sink, if not more.

A prep sink really makes my kitchen very, very functional!

Well, that helps quite a bit. Thank you everyone!

I never even thought about working around dirty dishes. I guess I am just used to it. :oP But it does slow down the work if I have to be moving stuff around before I can do what I want with the sink!

Part of my reluctance in putting a sink in the island is the extra plumbing hassle for my hubby but I am sure he can do it and probably won't even mind. He's nice that way. :o)

My kitchen has 3 entrances, so the countertop runs are rather cut up -- we put in a prep sink in the corner to the peninsula about 2 feet from the stove, and have wound up using it much more for cooking than the "real" sink, which is across the way on another counter run. In practice it works out very well - one gets all the food and the other gets all the dirty dishes and gunk.

I never would have considered a prep sink either, if we hadn't had to figure out a way to use the corner base cabinet space and I didn't loathe lazy susans so much. So take that, awkward corner storage! ;-)

LOL CircusPeanut!

I actually did not start out to make a prep sink but a lobby sink. My DH works on his classic cars in garage and frequently needs to wash hands. I wanted to keep him out of the kitchen because his grimy hands and worker soap were such an intrusion into my use of the same space. Then we started thinking that if the the wash-hands sink could be deep enough to rinse garden produce, that would keep the lettuces and stuff away from the other things already in the sink, such as dishwater. Slowly, the little sink worked its way from lobby to the kitchen peninsula in our plans. Now, it's going to serve the mechanic, the gardener, the person waiting table, and the cook.

There is no doubt that a well placed prep sink makes a kitchen work so much better. So much that happens in a kitchen involves water access, from washing hands to wetting a rag to rinsing vegggies to thinning soup to filling a water glass to watering plants to washing dishes to filling the dog's water bowl...A second sink can take on a lot of that workload providing it is located where people use it.

It helps too to consider what a designated cleanup sink can do for a kitchen's organization. Storing the dishes near there means a dish never even has to enter the prepping/cooking part of the kitchen. Cupboard-> table -> DW (or sink!) -> cupboard. Brilliant in its simplicity and order. I love that.

I have not done a new build or a remodel on a scale that allowed a prep sink. But I have wanted one for, oh, thirty years or so since I first got hooked on kitchen design. I have just not been able to justify the cost and hassle and waste of ripping into an otherwise perfectly functional kitchen. If I were doing a reno or new build, I would absolutely design in a prep sink.

Sheesh, now I'm wondering if I'll ever have one!

Celticmoon, I hope you get your prep sink someday! If it makes you feel any better I don't think I will ever have a great big Wolf range with the cool red knobs. ;o)

Florantha, I think you need three sinks! :o)

Circuspeanut, How does the sink in the corner work? Don't flame me people, I am just asking! Do you just have a cabinet set at an angle with the sink in it? Just curious.

blessedathome, if you have the time, read about Zoning the water uses in a kitchen, on the Dornbracht site. I don't have the room for two sinks, so I'm plumbing for two sources of water near one drain. A lot more flexibility, especially when there are two people in the kitchen at the same time.

Hi blessed, sure thing! My kitchen was a complete DIY project and we didn't know much about kitchen design at the time; I joined GW about halfway through. I used recycled cabinets, so there were a number of things we had to tailor to fit our space.

I had a base cabinet with lazy susan in it that we used for the base of the peninsula 'L' by the stove. Rather than keep the susan, we tore it out and built a sink into that space instead, using the innards of the corner of the cab for plumbing and the rest of it for storage:

We've got a full-size batchfeed Insinkerator Evolution in there, too. I had initially envisioned opening the cabinet from behind, so that the plumber could access pipes from the other side of the peninsula, but he had no problem crawling in to do the plumbing from the front. So we built a bookshelf along the back (forgive the mess):

It's not the absolutest ergonomickest sink placement, because it's a bit far from the countertop edge, but we're long-armed and it's really worked well for us. It's got perfect access to the stove without crossing the kitchen to the big sink. We probably use that 24" counterspace between the prep sink and stove most of all the spaces in the entire kitchen. I also love that the sink is accessible from both sides -- if a guest is wandering in from the deck door on the other side of the peninsula, they can grab a glass of water or wash hands without having to enter the active kitchen space. In the summer I keep glasses and handtowels on the bookshelf below.

Davidro, thanks for sharing the link.

Circuspeanut, Thank you for explaining your set up and sharing the photos. Are those copper counters? Pretty! And I really like your range too. :o) Also, your bookshelves do not look messy to me, just be glad I'm not posting a photo of *our* bookshelves! :oD