The Wheatley Fireclay Fluted Farmhouse Sink: Designing with the Sink in Mind
New Premium Sink Styles with the Same Focus on Value
We’ve recently added a new material to our product portfolio: fireclay. While we primarily offer copper sinks, the material isn’t the only thing that’s super important to us; we are mostly focused on ensuring that our products offer quality, durability, value, sustainability, and satisfaction to our customers, regardless of the material which we use to produce them. While copper sinks deliver on all of these criteria, we have expanded our portfolio of products to offer new material and color options to our customers; while still offer the same quality and value.
Our new fireclay sinks offer the exact same quality, durability, value, sustainability, and customer satisfaction efforts as our copper sink collection. These highly durable fireclay sinks are stain, chip, and scratch resistant (just like our copper sinks), but come in a color that copper never can: pure, vibrant white. Getting the same handcrafted quality, our customers now have more design options when choosing a sink from Sinkology. Our first two fireclay sinks are the Wheatley and the Bradstreet. Our plan is to grow this category with more design options, but in the meantime, we’re providing 4 styles across these 2 farmhouse sinks by making reversible fronts. So, while we offer 2 sinks, we offer 4 styles. To help our customers envision how these styles might apply in a home, we are providing a kitchen decor approach based on the fluted front design of the Wheatley farmhouse fireclay sink.
A fireclay sink is extremely versatile and can be at home in almost any style of kitchen. The clean lines of this design could work great in a mid-century kitchen, the farmhouse style is perfect in a rustic cabin, and the sleekness works great in a transitional or modern kitchen. For this particular approach to a kitchen design we played up the vintage feel of fireclay. Bringing in classic designs, antique pieces, and wood tones, the design would work great in a woodsy cottage or farmhouse kitchen.
It’s easy to go overboard in a cottage or farmhouse design; with lots of primitives, knick-knack, antiques, 
and signage. Keep things simple. Pick a simple and subtle color palette and start from there. For this room, we’ve settled on a sage as the primary color with a bright blue as a secondary color. Focusing on white with pops of color is a great way to achieve a clean look: consider white cabinets, white subway tiles, and white paint. If white seems to sterile for your room, cream is another great color for a warmer look that is also clean – especially in a farmhouse.
In addition to the focus on fireclay, we’ve also included some copper elements in this design. From the rustic bronze Pfister faucet, the hammered copper light switch cover, the copper drawer pull, the basket strainer, and the antique brown bottom grid, you could see how a copper bar or prep sink would complement this design and fit beautifully in a butcher block countertop next to this fireclay beauty.
Keep Your Sink Clean
While fireclay sinks are super easy to clean and maintain, and are scratch proof, it’s still important to keep your kitchen sink sanitized and free of clutter. Sinkology has recently released a collection of sponges called the Breeze Non-Scratch Scrubber. These sponges are perfect for scrubbing your kitchen fireclay sink, pots and pans, or your copper bar and prep sink without worrying about scratching them. These lightly lavender-scented sponges are made from 100% silicone, so they dry fast and are resistant to odor-causing bacteria, mold, and mildew. They come in packages of 1, 3, or 6.
Why Fireclay?
Fireclay is a mixture of clay and glaze that is fired at extremely high temperatures (1600-2200 degrees). It is extremely durable, heat-resistant, chip-resistant, and scratch-resistant. Fireclay sinks are also extremely easy to care for and maintain. The material also looks very similar to enameled cast iron sinks, but definitely has the edge over cast iron. For example, with a cast iron sink, you cannot use any abrasive cleaners and the enamel is prone to scratching; but, fireclay is much more resistant to cleaners and scratches. It’s true that both are heavy, but Sinkology fireclay sinks (~100 lbs.) weigh nearly 30% less than our competitors’ cast iron sinks (~140 lbs.). Also, when enameled cast iron chips, the color of the cast iron will show through; but, IF fireclay chips, the chip is must less conspicuous.
Because of all these benefits, fireclay sinks are the clear front runner over enameled cast iron, but the best part is the value. While fireclay outmatches enameled cast iron in quality, durability, and more; it also outmatches it in price. With Sinkology, our fireclay farmhouse kitchen sinks come in at about 2/3 of the cost of most cast iron farmhouse sinks.
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