Parts going in, or not

It's come time to start thinking about kitchen counters, and since each piece is going to be unique and built in around appliances, I had to start somewhere to know how to build the rest. We had this old sink we wanted to use, so it's become the center point we'll build off of.

In the picture above, you can see the nice slab of redwood in the front, that will get oiled, and be exposed to the room. The sink edge goes right along it's vertical edge, so there's no were for water to sit.

The problem is that we want to tile over the top of the sink. (actually, now that I write that, I can't remember WHY we wanted to do that. so we could easily sweep junk into the sink? hm) Anyway, the problem is, with the plywood and hardibacker that's needed under the tile, the tile is too high for our plans. what to do? (shimming up the sink would mess up my front redwood slab edge above)

In other news, the toilet bench is taking shape. the square part is for the sawdust... not a strange shaped butt.