time frugality: dishwashing

I hear dish drying cabinets are common in Finland. Here's a lifehacker post about them. Wash the dishes, the cabinet IS the drainer. Brilliant!
The only complaint I have about the ones I have seen is that they must be made for folks who are much taller than my 5'4" (1.62 meters). I'm thinking that the height over the splash board could be just high enough for my tall pans. Hmm, maybe skip the one over the sink, or just keep it for jars or plastics.

I've seen pictures of something like that in magazines and home design books -- I like the idea, but like you, am too short for the ones over the kitchen sink (and don't want my view out the window blocked, either -- I hate houses that have sinks facing an inside wall, or even just into a room without a window right in front of the sink). Our dishwasher doesn't work very well (probably clogged up with calcium deposit) so I use it for storing the milking equipment and jars, and when I rinse them, I just put them into the dishwasher to dry, so it's like a drying cabinet for those items.

Kathleen

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:
(and don't want my view out the window blocked, either -- I hate houses that have sinks facing an inside wall, or even just into a room without a window right in front of the sink).

Kathleen

My grandmother who didn't believe that women's liberation had anything to do with farm women said that the kitchen sink should face the driveway so you can see the men coming back with loads of hay and such, then you know when it's time to take supper out of the oven. It's also nice if it faces the yard where kids play and you also want a view of the barn. So the person standing at that sink is effectively the watchdog or Sentry and it's their job to keep an eye on all of the activity in their field of view. We know that wives and mothers like to micromanage things while watching what everybody is up to. Unfortunately electric dishwashers have stolen their thunder

This may seem totally obvious and/or pointless, but I've been known to use my dishwasher as a drying rack. If you have a dishwasher but don't use it because of its water use or because you don't like the detergents, it can still help a lot with the dishes.

Maybe you could make a drying cabinet like the one you linked, but as part of the lower cabinet instead. I seem to just pull clean dishes out of the dishwasher to go straight to the table most of the time anyway....

permacaper wrote:
This may seem totally obvious and/or pointless, but I've been known to use my dishwasher as a drying rack. If you have a dishwasher but don't use it because of its water use or because you don't like the detergents, it can still help a lot with the dishes.

I've thought of doing that but I was afraid that mildew would build up in the dishwasher. Do you have problems?

I haven't had any problems with mildew in my dishwasher (and I do put the jars in there to dry, straight from the rinse water). But, we live in a dry climate.

Kathleen

No problems with mildew yet, and I live in Missouri (the world capital of humidity, or so it seems sometimes). I guess if it started to show up you could run a cycle on the dishwasher to take care of it.

I've been using my dishwasher as a drying rack for a couple of months and I did start to get some mildew in there. I put some vinegar in the spot for detergent and ran the nine minute "Rinse Only" cycle. That worked.