Saturday, December 29, 2012

To dishwasher or not to dishwasher

THAT is the question.

When we put our townhouse on the market, in January 2011, we got into the habit of washing all of our dishes by hand, since you can't exactly leave dirty (or clean for that matter) dishes in the dishwasher when you're having open houses.  When we moved here, we were already in that habit and just continued.  We have used our dishwasher on a few occasions, including this week, to wash the dishes after Christmas dinner.

And I've been thinking lately, we have this dishwasher in the kitchen that is EMPTY all of the time.  It would be a great place to store our pots and pans.  OR we could start using the dishwasher again.  When we first moved in, there was just three of us.  Then there was four of us, but one of us was a newborn who didn't use dishes.  Now there are four of us, including a 4 year old and an 18m old who can (and do) get into their dishes and use what feels like every dish in the house almost every single day.  IKEA children's dishes are dishwasher safe, aren't they?

So we're going to try it.  I'm a tad over spending so much time doing dishes.  OR, if I don't get to the dishes, it just piles up on the counter and THEN there's a ton of dishes to do.  So we'll see how it goes. Worst case, we go back to doing them by hand.  But if it's easier, and takes less time, which turns into spending more time with my kids, then I'll take that.

12 comments:

  1. We didn't have a dishwasher until we moved into our house this past July. We were well over hand washing dishes. I LOVE the convenience of the dishwasher!

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    1. Good point, I might enjoy the break from standing at the sink all the time. And ultimately, we still need to put the dishes away, so whether they come from a sink or the dishwasher doesn't matter.

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    2. I dont think i could survive without mine! We run it at least once a day, twice on the weekends.

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  2. My dishwasher is about 5ft tall and 8 years old! brilliant!!

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  3. We didn't use ours a lot until about 3 months ago when I decided to use it to wash almost everything. I was so tired of doing dishes. Now we run it at least once a day. :)

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    1. I think I'm at the same point. I can't believe it's been almost two years!

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  4. We got a dishwasher when we first moved up here in 2011. We now often comment how we got along without it. It's a water saving one, so it uses less water for a full cycle than it does to run one sink of water. It's run twice a day on average days. I think I'd cry if it stopped working...

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  5. We run ours nightly. I just feel like it can clean better than I can since my hands wouldn't be able to stand that hot of water (i make sure all food chunks are off the dishes before loading).

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  6. i would go crazy without mine! the girls use sooo many dishes at this age, its like every time A gets a drink she's taking a new cup out of the cupboard. we went without one for awhile and never ever again. i get A to help unload it too, its a great chore for a 4 year old!

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    1. M does the same thing. Or we do with K's cups. Can't find his old one, so grab a new one. Good to know she likes unloading it. Hopefully M will help too!

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