Elkay Avado Accent Sink
11 November 2008
“Elkay Homa, O.K.”
I have spent so much time wandering amidst European kitchens and baths that I sometimes lose sight of the fact that there are any number of companies here at home maki
ng exciting and innovative products. But the thing with innovation is always this: does it do the job?
I remember years ago when I took a basic art appreciation class in junior college and the instructor was regaling us with the story of a modern artist—our instructor hated modern art—who came up with a concept for a huge outdoor metal sculpture that was some twenty or thirty feet high. Made of many pieces, it was designed to pivot on a concealed motorized base to catch the sun as it wended its way across the sky. Well, to make the many pie
ces, the artist employed some art students, and they then cast the pieces in an outdoor hearth of some sort which caused some unexpected bubbling that created a really marvelous effect. But as our art instructor pointed out, they had so much fun with the casting that they forgot about the necessity of casting the pieces to certain specifications so they would pivot. And as a result, it didn’t. It just sat.
The same is true of items made for our homes, especially kitchens and baths, as these two rooms, especially, require a number of things to function well, and all of the things these rooms require must, well, function well, because if they don’t there’s no point at all to them. They just sit.
With that as preface, then, I can talk about the Elkay Avado Accent Sink, which is one of the most innovative kitchen sinks I have yet reviewed for this website. Elkay is one of the mainstream producers of sinks for both commercial and residential uses in this country, but from that it does not follow that their products are purely utilitarian. Yes, a kitchen sink has a function that necessarily limits the form
and shape it must have to perform that function, but beyond that there is an element of style that must exist, if the sink is to elevate itself above “more of the same.” And if, perchance, this sink can be made to perform extraordinary tasks, well, what could be better than that?
And with that I have set forth what so impressed me about the Elkay Avado Accent Sink. It’s a sink, yes, but it is also a sink that enables one to do quite a few bit of the work that needs must be done in any kitchen, and do this work with ease, grace, and style.
Single basin sinks are an idea that is, in some respects, a return to the past, and in other respects, a journey to the future. The problem with double sinks, as I stated in a previous blog, is that they’ve had their day, but only a few of us seem to have noticed. Way back when, we washed our dishes in a single sink, using a pot of some sort for the dish pan. Then they came up with a double sink—one for soapy water, one for rinsing—and we all t
hought the Millennium had arrived. But dishwashers (because we don’t wash by hand anymore) made that setup both obsolete and cumbersome, which is something I wrestle with whenever I wash unwieldy items like the BBQ grill. The problem with going to a single basin sink, though, is the “what ifs.” You know what I’m talking about if you’re married. “What if we need a second basin for…”
Well, sir! Elkay has come up with an innovative sink concept that serves as both a single basin sink and double basin sink. Actually, it’s a range of four deep, double bowl, drop-in kitchen sinks that you can pretty much use in any configuration that suits your purposes. It really is the slickest modular system I’ve ever seen for a kitchen sink. This system—it’s hard to think of it as a mere sink—enables you to drain, soak, and defrost while still using the front of the sink for washing and food preparation. Truth to tell, Elkay is considerably more than O.K. They’re terrific, but I couldn’t come up with a punning title for that!
Joseph
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