E-Materials » Faucets

What To Look For In A Corner Sink

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:19:52 +0000

Whether your corner sink is for the kitchen or bathroom, there are some qualities that are important to look for to make sure that you get the most from your purchase. It might seem like a simple replacement, or new installation, but not all sinks are created equally! This post will show you these details, some of them might seem minor but can be the difference between a sink lasting a few years, or lasting a lifetime.

The key to a quality corner sink is the materials that it’s made from. If you’re replacing an existing sink, I’d venture a guess that it’s made from ceramic and has become dingy and stained over the years. To get the most from your next sink, it might be a good idea to use a material other than ceramic (or at least a higher quality ceramic). These sinks are going to cost more, but will prevent you from having to replace it any time soon.

A great ceramic alternative is just another type of ceramic that is becoming more common. Fireclay is its name, and it is much more durable and less porous than your traditional sink. It’s also made using much more environmentally friendly practices, if that’s important to you.

Stainless steel is always a good choice for a corner sink that will last a very long time, with little maintenance, at a great price. These won’t cost too much more than a ceramic one will, and will outlive you and your home.

Another quality to look for is the shape of the sink. If you’ve read other posts here on ematerials.net you may already know this, but it’s important enough to state again. Most sinks have round basins for a reason, it prevents water from splashing out and forces water towards the drain. A new trend in corner sinks is to have them rectangle shaped with ramps that lead the water towards the drain. This looks great, but when water hits a flat surface, it’s going to splash out.

There are a handful of solutions to this problem. One, if rectangle and square shaped sinks are your thing, get one that’s deep, like four or five inches deep, to give the walls enough height to catch the water before it goes overboard. The second solution is to reduce the water pressure to the faucet, turn the hot/cold knobs tighter that are located where your water comes from the wall to do this. Or the third solution is to have a mop on hand to clean up every time someone brushed their teeth.

Shopping for corner sinks isn’t tough at all, but be sure to weigh in the things discussed above into your decision. You want a sink that is going to last a long time, without causing any unnecessary headaches along the way!

How To Use Bar Sink Faucets In Your Home

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:44:16 +0000

You don’t necessarily need a home bar to add bar sink faucets to your home. That’s generally where they end up, but it’s not the only place to use this style of faucet in your home. Bar faucets have their limitations, but can be used in almost any sink in the home. This post will show you where you can install them in different areas of your home.

The biggest downside that these have is their limited range. They’re designed to provide clearance for washing hands, veggies, and glasses in restaurants and bars, where faucets that stick far out into the sink are reserved for the dish washing area. There are some Kohler bar sink faucets that the spout comes out from the end and can be used anywhere, which makes them work anywhere.

Using bar faucets in the bathroom is ideal. Since the sinks don’t extend very far into the sink they work great for washing hands, brushing teeth, and all of the other bathroom functions. Their tall height pairs extremely well with vessel sinks, since they sit so high off of the counter top.

In the kitchen they don’t make much sense to use as your main faucet, but if you have extra sinks for getting tap water or washing hands/veggies they’re perfectly designed for this. If you add a filter to the tap water you can save money on your bar sink faucet by getting one that only does cold water and use it just for drinking water.

Obviously, the bar is the best place for bar faucets, but there are tons of other uses for them. Put simply, they’re great looking faucets with limited range, so anywhere that you need style without much function a bar faucet is the perfect fit.

Bar Prep Faucets

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:31:37 +0000

Bar prep faucets work great in homes as well as bars and restaurants. They have a simple and elegant design, even in the most basic of designs, that adds a creative touch to any sink. In this post I want to take a look at the bar faucets that would be used in restaurants and how they work in the home as well.

No sane restaurateur would spend $500 on a designer bar faucet for the back of the house. Instead, there are faucets that usually run about $40 and do the exact same job and it’s not a big deal when it breaks to replace it. It’s pure function over fashion for these faucets in the restaurant industry, but the strange thing is that they also look really cool!

These faucets are usually the most simple design, finished in chrome, that serve to wash hands and clean glasses. They will have a long spout with hot and cold handles, as well as be built like tanks so that they can take the abuse that restaurant employees will put on them. Another major benefit of these types of bar faucets is that they are extremely easy to replace parts on, and most manufacturers also sell kits of all of the replacement parts.

How do these work in the home? Their simple and no nonsense design provides a solid faucet that isn’t distracting or over the top. If you have sinks at your home bar or hand/veggie washing sinks in the kitchen, these are the perfect choice when you don’t want your fixtures to take away from the rest of your appliances and design. Also, the price isn’t bad, when you consider the fact that you can get an entire house’s worth of these for the price that you would normally pay for a designer brand faucet!

Bar prep faucets aren’t just for restaurants. Use their simple and no nonsense design to compliment the other stuff in your home, rather than stand out!

Grohe Bar Faucets

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:52:53 +0000

Grohe bar faucets are the true sign of home elegance and beauty. They are one of the most respected and revered designers that create faucets that work as well in your home as they would on the wall in a modern art museum. In this post I want to show you a few different faucet models that they have so you can make an educated decision when it’s time to upgrade your bar faucets.

Why choose Grohe? Choose Grohe when you want the absolute best for your home! (No, I don’t work for Grohe, this is just my opinion!)

The Grohe Single Hole Basin/Pillar Tap Faucet is a stunning work that will take any room to extraordinary levels. It’s made from brass with a flawless stainless steel finish. There is only one handle, and it only does cold water, so it’s perfect for filtered drinking water. The curved spout with rounded corners creates a beautiful and modern look that works with most home’s styles.

For a more traditional look, check out the Grohe Bridgeford Bar Faucet. This is a one hole, two handled bar faucet that has a more “period” feel that would work perfect in homes that successfully merge antique furniture and LCD TV’s. It has a very versatile design and comes in chrome, oil rubbed bronze, and stainless steel. If you ride the fence between vintage and contemporary, this bar faucet is designed just for you.

If you want a clean and simple look, check out the Grohe Classic II Kitchen/Bar Centerset Faucet. This is close to the traditional bar faucet in overall design, but the details are what make it stand apart (like all of Grohe’s faucets). It installs with one hole and has two handles that take care of the hot/cold duties. The handles are a triangulated cylinder that look stunning without being over the top. The spout is a perfect cylinder, and it’s finished in their renowned chrome.

A Grohe bar faucet will turn any sink into a work of art. Spend the time to shop through their collection and you’ll start to see the small design details that set Grohe apart from all of the other faucet designers.

Danze Bar Faucets

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:25:56 +0000

Danze bar faucets are one of the best ways to add designer style to your home without spending a fortune. It’s easy to get the look of a high end faucet while spending less than 200 bucks. Danze creates style and forward thinking design that rivals the finest companies in the world, while allowing those that are on tight budgets to add them to their home. In this post I want to take a look at a few different models of bar faucets they have and show you why they’re a great addition to your home bar.

(disclaimer: I don’t have anything to do with Danze, this is purely informational!)

The Danze Como Single Handle Bar Faucet is a modern and elegant bar faucet that has a clean and simple design. The long spout is completely straight with a square base and a single handle. The handle controls the hot and cold duties by moving it forward or back. The coolest thing about this bar faucet (aside from its clean style) is that you can get it for around $180. That’s showroom/art gallery design for under $200!

The Danze Opulent Single Handle Bar Faucet is similar to the Como model in the fact that it only has a single handle, but it’s much more ornate. Opulent is a good word to describe this faucet, it is well decorated and looks as if it should fit in a turn-of-the-century pub. It also comes in three different finishes oil rubbed bronze, antique copper, and stainless steel. Again, this high end looking faucet will set you back less than $200.

If you’re looking for something more traditional, check out the Danze Sheridan Double Handle Bar Faucet. It has both a hot and cold stem and a traditional bar faucet look. The spout has a swan-neck shape that differentiates it from the generic bar faucet. This is true affordable beauty since it costs less than $75.

Danze bar faucets are the perfect addition to any home, including yours! If you want elegance and beauty without paying out the ear for it, a Danze bar faucet is the way to go.

What’s Your Style Of Bar Sink Faucet?

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:43:02 +0000

There are a lot of bar sink faucet styles, and enough price ranges to make you dizzy. The key is to know what you want before you go shopping so that you can navigate the mess of choices with ease. In this post we’ll take a look at the three most common styles of bar faucets; restaurant, home, and designer. This way you can get exactly what you want at the price you need.

The type of bar faucets that restaurants and bars use are the no frills type that serve to clean glasses and wash hands. Just because these are designed for industrial use doesn’t mean that they won’t work in your house. You can expect a long spout and hot/cold handles in a chrome finish and not a lot else. If you have a traditional style bar in your home with a stainless steel sink, these look great. The best part about the no frills bar sink faucets is that you can pick them up for less then $40. If you are having a hard time finding them at that price, check restaurant supply stores.

The regular home bar sink faucets function the same as the restaurant style ones do, but with more style. If you want something with a little more flair, but don’t want to spend $500 on it, this is your type. These are the common styles that you’ll find at Home Depot, Lowe’s, or in most online stores. You’ll get a long spout, different designs of hot/cold handles, and different finish options. For these you can expect to spend between $80 and $200. There are tons of different brands and designs here, so be sure to determine what “theme” and finish you want for your bar sink faucet first before shopping.

Designer bar faucets are an entirely different animal. These are the type that you buy then design a room to match! My favorite feature that comes with most of these faucets is the motion sensing on/off which is extraordinarily handy when you’re pouring drinks! High end brands like Rohl, Grohe, and Newport are what you’re going to be looking at here. Watch how much the price jumps when you change finishes!

Bar sink faucets are an excellent addition to any home, and the best part about them is that they fit into every budget!

Choosing Bar Faucets

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 06:53:07 +0000

Installing bar faucets in your home, whether it be in a bar or just on your kitchen sink, is an excellent way to improve the feel of your space. Bar sink faucets add a touch of old-school to a modern home, and they create a ton more space in the sink because of their height and narrow profile. With lots of different options to choose from, how do you make a decision? It’s easy when you know what you’re looking at!

Before we go any farther, I should point out some of the minor drawbacks that bar sinks and faucets have. Most bar sinks are stainless steel, when you couple the stainless with the extended height of a bar faucet you have a noisy recipe. It’s only an extra few inches, but it can really make a difference when the water is on high! Bar faucets also have a very limited range. The entire faucet has a small footprint, so getting water to the front of the sink to clean is tricky.

With all of that being said, there are some things that you should look for when buying bar faucets. Design is obviously the most important. One really cool thing is that an authentic faucet is going to be the cheapest one. If you find the same kind that they use in your local dive, it will probably cost you less than thirty bucks! If you are looking for something in a different finish, you can expect to pay much more. Bronze bar faucets are very popular and elegant, but if that’s what you’re looking for do some research to find the best price. It can mean the difference of a few hundred bucks!

The features of bar faucets also vary a lot. You can get faucets that have both the hot and cold stems, a single stem version, or my favorite, the pump. The pumps are very cool because they seem to operate like an old school faucet that pumps the water from under the house, when in reality they just open the valve for a few seconds. Pump bar faucets are very nice, but they tend to get dirty faster due to more contact between the hands and the hardware.

Adding a bar faucet in your home is a wise investment. It can make a dramatic impact on the appearance of your bar or kitchen for not a lot of money. Spend some time shopping around and I’m sure you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for at the price you want.