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Adding skirt to farmhouse sink

pps7
11 years ago

Hello everyone! Haven't been here for a while- got a little burned out on the house decorating thing :)

I want to add a skirt to my farhouse sink for 2 reasons. One, I like the look. And two, water dripping down my cabinet is causing the paint to chip and peel.

Here are the best pics I have of the sink; sorry, they're not very good.

Overview of kitchen:

Here's the fabric:

So here are my questions.

The skirt will be place right under the sink. I will remove those doors. I want to use Velcro as I don't have any depth to work with. How do I create a gather if I use Velcro? I do have a seamstress who could possibly do a pinch pleat but I only have the 54" width of fabric and I need the total end width of 38". Do I have enough fabric? Also, the sink cabinet is bumped out 3 inches. I was planning on wrapping the skirt around. Do you guys agree?

Inspiration pictures:

(the blue striped one):

Comments (7)

  • marcolo
    11 years ago

    Do the skirt inside the doors, on a rod. You can't wrap it around--you don't have that kind of sink. A tension rod might work.

    The reason you are getting drips is because you have no drip rail. It's a stained or painted wooden rail applied to the cab right below the sink. The sink almost looks like it's sitting on it. On the underside of the rail you rout out a small groove the full length of the rail, which makes water lose its grip and fall directly to the ground, missing the cabinets.

    A wet curtain over the cabs is certainly not going to save the paint.

  • jak1
    11 years ago

    Check at a drapery store. I used a cable type curtain thing. It had two little "eyes" that screwed into the ends of the cable. You could cut the cable to any length you wanted. Then two tiny hooks screwed into the wall or cupborad base etc, you gathered the curtain onto the cable, hooked the eyes onto the hooks and presto! Took about fiftenn minutes and worked perfectly.

  • mclarke
    11 years ago

    I agree ... Use a tension rod inside the cabinet opening. Make your curtains with a simple pocket hem at the top to gather the fabric. You don't want pinch pleats.

    Don't worry about the fabric width, since you will want your curtain in two pieces anyway -- it should have an opening in the middle. Just make sure that the pattern matches correctly.

  • GreenDesigns
    11 years ago

    I agree. A small tension rod inside the cabinet door opening is the classic way of doing a farm sink curtain. And you've discovered one of the main drawbacks to the modern farm sink. (And one reason the use of them originally fell out of favor.) Even with drip rails, the sink cabinet usually becomes more damaged by water than with a regular undermounted or top mounted sink. The solution is to dry the sink cabinet after you're done washing up and eventually to repaint. That's a maintainence chore that your great grandmother did probably annually on her sink base unless she just had the sink mounted on legs, which was a more usual practice. That way, the dripping water just hit the floor and there was no cabinet underneath it to become damaged. THe skirt hid all of the plumbing.

  • pps7
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Thanks for the feedback. The majority of the damage in on the cabinet frame portion between the sink and doors, so putting a skirt with a tension rod inside the cabinet opening isn't going to do much.

    I realize, the skirt will not prevent damage to the cabinet, but I'm hoping to cover the damaged portion, and possible reduce further damage. I can't see painting it every year. My builder did have the cabinet repainted one year after we moved it, but a year later it needs to be painted again.

    I'm hoping to do something along the lines of inspiration picture 1. I will put the skirt immediately below the sink so that none of the frame is visible. I hope it will also catch some of the water and then I will wash it periodically.

    Do you think this will look okay? I need a method of attaching it and a way to creat a little bit of gather. Jak1, I will look into the cable thing.

  • dedtired
    11 years ago

    How about some stick-on velcro? You can hem the top and bottom of the fabric, then gather the top edge and sew some velcro to it. Stick the other half of the velcro at the top of the cab, and voila.

  • marcolo
    11 years ago

    After you stick it on, it will look like you stuck it on.

    Again, you sink has a completely different shape from your inspiration pictures. It is not proud of the cabinet face and it does not have a squared-off bottom. Your curtain will sit forward of the actual sink. And where do you propose to end your curtain on the sides? All of your inspiration pics have natural stopping points that you do not.

    Start with a drip rail.