Whether you’re renovating your kitchen or designing a kitchen from scratch, you have many important choices to make. One of them is deciding between a single basin sink or a double basin sink, and picking the right one for you is more important than you realize.

It’s about more than aesthetics or even selecting a sink that works with your current kitchen setup. If you install a sink that you’re not comfortable with, you will find yourself struggling miserably every time you’re preparing food or washing dishes.

So let’s break it down in order to help you feel more comfortable in your decision.

Pros and Cons of Single Basin Sinks vs. Double Basin Sinks

Single Basin Sink

Pros

• You get more room for dishes.

• It provides more space for large items that wouldn’t fit in a divided sink.

• You can choose a single basin sink that’s deeper, so your dishes will be less visible and the basin will be even larger.

• You have more room for special projects like canning vegetables.

Cons

• All dishes are cluttered on top of each other.

• The garbage disposal grinder will most likely be on the bottom of the single basin, resulting in more difficulty in disposing of garbage if you happen to have dishes in the sink at that moment.

Double Basin Sink

Pros

• It provides for better organization. You can place dirty dishes on one side only and leave the other side available for dish washing, or quick rinsing before placing dishes into the dishwasher.

• The garbage disposal grinder will be more accessible.

• If you do place dirty dishes only in one side of the sink until you can get to them, the overall kitchen will appear less cluttered than if you had a single sink.

• Soaking, washing, and placing items into the dishwasher or drying them is more systematic.

• You can leave one side available for food preparation, such as rinsing fruits.

• You can choose a double basin sink that’s deeper as well, providing you with more room for larger items and keeping dishes out sight.

        Cons

• The partition gets in the way, which can make rinsing or washing large pots, pans, and trays very clunky and awkward.

• If you don’t care to take advantage of the organizational and systematic aspects, then all you have is essentially a divided single basin sink with none of the aforementioned benefits.

• If you never cook at home and you always use the dishwasher rather than washing by hand, a double basin sink might not be as useful.

So Are You Going to Choose a Single Basin Sink or a Double Basin Sink?

One of the most important factors when choosing a single basin sink or a double basin sink is the existing setup of your kitchen.

If you’re designing a new kitchen, the choice is all up to you.

However, if you are redesigning a kitchen that once had a single basin sink and now you want a double basin sink, or vice versa, you may have to go through additional plumbing and structural changes before you can install the new sink.

Another issue you will have to consider is that of comfort. Can you bend over to retrieve dishes that are at the bottom a deep, single basin sink? Do you feel like constantly bumping dishes into the partition of a double basin sink will be infuriating? Thinking about how you personally like to do things and your physical capabilities will help you decide between a single basin sink or a double basin sink.

As a side note, cost isn’t as much of a factor, because it truly depends on the type and quality of the sink you buy.

The bottom line is that you should select a sink that you’re comfortable with, which will help you better enjoy even cleanup time in your beautiful Arizona kitchen.