I've been using my soapstone sink since December - a relatively short amount of time, but the new kitchen has seen lots of cooking, baking and entertaining.

Overall, I don't find my SS sink to be any more high maintenance than my stainless. I've posted before on this subject that I keep a plastic dish tub in the undersink cab and fill that with sudsy water to wash my dishes. It protects my glassware and china from the hard sink surface, and I also use lots less water as my sink is a large single.

I just dump the water down the drain, give a quick wipe with a microfiber dishcloth and spray around the corners. I don't find this to be a hassle, as I have used this same method in my stainless sink for years.

When I wash a broiler pan, big Dutch oven or large baking dishes, I put them directly in the sink. No chips, dings or scratches....yet!

Hi - I'm bumping this in the hopes that others who have had soapstone sinks for a while will chip in (ha ha). Thank you, amck, for your response!

Eliz

I thought I responded to this post last week...hmmm.

I have a one year old ss sink. I am pretty rough with my counters and sink because I want to make them look well used and old like they came out of a hundred year old farmhouse. The sink has only a few scratches around the rim from cleaning my range grates. There aren't any chips or gouges either. I have a really soft stone that scratches with a fingernail too. I think the oil from food keeps the sink dark so any scratches disappear. I would say that the edges are slightly duller than the edges on the countertop but nothing noticable. I did buy a grid for the bottom of the sink so it has been more protected than most. I only bought the grid because I was breaking so many dishes in the sink. In all, this sink will is aging more gracefully than me. I would highly recommend.

One other thing...make sure your sink and counter are made from the same type of soapstone. I have read of other people who have different stones so the color is never the same as the different stones lighten at different rates.

I have a 100 year old soapstone sink LOL so I had not posted before. It already has the "look" and chips etc. I sometimes use a plastic dishpan but most times not. It is a huge single but generally I just use the largest pot I cooked in and work from there. No breakage of dishes yet and it has been over 1 1/2 years. If you start with an old sink from Nor'east Architectural Salvage you will already have the aged look. They have a great website and selection . Good Luck, Caroline

Caroline, before I bumped this, I saw your sink and the mention of Nor'east Architectural Salvage on another thread this morning. I ended up spending way too much time on that site before I had to leave for work!

Thanks for the info about the age of your sink. I know that the patina of time is one of the appeals of soapstone, and I guess I've been focusing on the daily dings and scratches that others have mentioned in regards to their counters. What I'm hearing is I shouldn't worry so much!

Eliz

Eliz, you got it...don't you love their website ?? Jon and Donna are wonderful folks. We just had a party tonight and everyone was amazed at the salvage...main question was " who did this design for you ??...uh ...me after one year of GW research !! LOL. Would love to see what you are doing ...c

C, here's my layout, still being tweaked but I think pretty close to what we're going to go with. I've had some great feedback already on this forum so pls feel free to jump in with any additional comments!

Our existing kitchen (in a very old house) is small, dark and dysfunctional. I am hoping that after 10 years of wishing, that we'll finally have something great.

Eliz

{{!gwi}}

I did want to let you know that there is no need for a landing pad if you are using soapstone. The stone is completely heat proof; they make ovens out of it and cook pizza on it. You may be doing it for symmetry though so feel free to ignore me. I do think it would end up being really scratched up like my grill cover and you may regret it.

Cleo

I 2nd Cleo on the soapstone being a great landing pad. That is what I have next to my double ovens, soapstone. And yes stainless gets really scratched so might be unsightly after a short time.

I wondered what kind of cooktop you are thinking of and why the induction next to it ? What kind of cooking do you do and size of family ? Is that a builtin grill on the cooktop ? Just from my experience I can say that the Lodge Logic grill pan gives a perfect product when heated on the gas burner till really hot. This gives you all burners to use for other things when you aren't grilling. Also we went with a builtin deep fat fryer by Miele rather than the induction burners. I was planning what you are and am glad I changed my mind. The Caldera 36" gas cooktop is all the heat we ever need and we do a lot of stirfry. I love the fryer and we use it often. Also what kind of vent hood are planning ? We have a Tradewind 1400 cfm liner and it is great for getting rid of every odor and all residual grease goes right on the baffles.

There you have it...:) Just some thoughts. That was the best thing for me about this forum . I loved getting feedback. Good luck your plan looks WONDERFUL. Caroline

On your layout, have you considered switching the fridge and ovens? Or better yet, pantry to oven spot, fridge to pantry spot, and ovens to fridge spot. The main reason being convenience to the prep zone. In the current layout, while you've got a good landing zone for fridge stuff, you then have to walk all the way around the island to wash things. I tink that could get annoying quickly.

On your sink, I love the look of soapstone myself. But if you're worried about dings and scratches, and about the hardness of a stone sink on your dishes, I'd like to suggest you look at Silgranit in the anthracite color. That's the sink I have with my soapstone countertops and I just LOVE that sink! (Who loves a sink? It's not the kind of thing I would fall in love with, certainly, but there's just something about this sink!) The dark Silgranit blends seamlessly into the soapstone, and the sink is very gentle on dishes and wears like anything.

Hi Cleo - yes the landing pad is for symmetry. Good point about the scratching, though. For sure the heat resisitance of the soapstone is what drew me in the first place and why we're putting it around the perimeter.

Caroline, the visio program didn't have a 6 burner icon, but that's what it will be - a six burner gas cooktop (no grill). We do all of our grilling outdoors on my DH's cherished charcoal Weber. You will probably laugh when I say this, but it is just the two of us! However we do entertain quite a bit and at least once a year we have a blowout party for 80+, that we do all of the cooking for ourselves. Plus, I'm just so darned intrigued by induction and seriously deliberated about getting it instead of gas. In the end, I thought this would be a great way to try the technology, and not compromise on counter space.

Sweeby, do you have a photo of your sink or are you on TKB? I hadn't considered Siligranite and it's an interesting thought. Would love to see what it looks like with your soapstone. In terms of our layout, I assumed that I would use BOTH sinks for prep and that's why the fridge is there. I'll take a look at the layout again though.

Thanks to all for your great feedback!

Eliz

As I was first looking at your layout i was going to reccomend flipping the wall ovens and frigde as well. but your dishwasher and location of where your plates and glasses are the fridge location is more convenient. the only thing from a design prospective i would look at would be the induction cooktop and stainless resting pad flanking the cooktop and this is coming from someone who is very symetrical. i know when i cook i spread stuff around me spices, ingrediants, utensils, cookbooks, etc... but you will have those two things in the way.
i'm a designer and you can take my .02 cents but i would do away with these two things. i feel it makes the space really crowded and you already have a six burner range what is the point of another cooking source except new technology just my opinion.
another design opinion, i would have the pantry and the open hutch piece tie in together. also i would check out this webcite and in my opinion is one of the best architect/design firms around but they do a lot of kitchens with no upper cabinets and lots of windows. check out the house from chattanooga tennessee under mountain aerie and look at the rest of them too. i think really pretty lamps would look great flanking the stove area.

http://www.mcalpineboothferrier.com/press.cfm

again this is all an opinion but you've got great space to work with

jen

Jen, all opinions welcome! it's what I love about GW. I was thinking that the landing pad would actually be a place to put spices, cookbooks, etc while cooking; that its function was more a question of aestetic and balance.

We definitely want the pantry to tie into the wall hutch. The idea is that it looks like a beautiful old piece of furniture that serves multiple functions. It will have to be built to spec, although our original idea was to find a wonderful old piece (still looking in hope!).

Love that web site! The houses are gorgeous.

I also love the idea of the warmth of lamps. I'm thinking that the backsplash might be brick, and lamps would be lovely with something like that.

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

Eliz