Here's a good question from Tina and Phil of 30 Bucks a Week, a blog about living on $30 a week in groceries. They're looking for a good dish drainer, and they ask:
Just wondering if there were any good ideas on dish drainers. We'll be moving into a new apartment and while the kitchen is cute and has counter space, it has zero when it comes to the sink. Any advice on a dish drainer or will we be stuck with washing and drying the dishes forever?
Tina and Phil, if your sink doesn't have room for a dish drainer, then you will need one that either sits on top of the counter and drains into the sink, or a model that hangs on the wall. You're in luck, too — our sister site Apartment Therapy just rounded up some of the best wall dish racks. The one pictured above appeared in Elle Interiör and was found at stylist Sasa Antic's portfolio site. You can see the rest of the wall-mounted racks at Apartment Therapy here:
• Dish Racks Up Off the Countertop
Here is another roundup of practical wall-mounted dish racks:
• Good Question: Looking For Wall-Mounted Dish Rack
If you don't want to mount your dish rack on the wall, then we recommend an inexpensive plastic or wire dish drainer with a mat underneath it that can drain into the sink. We have one like this, and we store it away under the sink when not in use.
Here's one dish drainer that stimulated some discussion here:
• Hot or Not: Simplehuman's U-Frame Dish Rack
Readers - do you have any dish drainer recommendations for small kitchens and small sinks?
• Visit Tina and Phil's blog: 30 Bucks a Week
Related: Home Cooking: Improvised Cookbook Holder
(Image: Elle Interiör, at Sasa Antic)
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I have about 18 inches of counter space, and a folding dish drainer. Most of the time, the drainer is folded and leaning against a wall somewhere out of the way. When I wash dishes, I put the dish drainer on my stove (turned off, of course).
view frum's profile
We almost never use our dishwasher (takes two hours to do dishes we could wash by hand in 15 minutes) so we use the dishwasher as a drying rack. Once in a while we'll run a load of dishes just to keep the parts moving.
view sebastian_dangerfield's profile
Thanks Faith for putting our query out there. I's funny because I saw the roundup on AT about dish-drainers, but I have the same query as most - what about the actual dripping of water? Currently, Phil and I have this over the sink drainer, but I feel like it takes up too much room. We put a rimmed baking sheet on the oven that can hold this drainer and then throw away the water (maybe we should use for plants). It's OK for now, but I am fearing cleanup for our large dinner parties! I like the idea of doing something over the sink, but I just don't know how feasible it would be. I am not into having water drip all over the place. ARG!
view mstinagray's profile
(the drainer takes up too much room in the sink - no room to actually wash dishes is what I meant in the 3rd sentence above)
view mstinagray's profile
We bought a new dish drainer for our teeny apartment last week. It's the "Bamboo Dish Drainer" from Crate and Barrel, and it folds flat for storage and doesn't have a bulky drip tray. Ours stays assembled on the counter over a towel, but I could see folding it up and swapping out the towel every night if I needed that counter space for prep. Bonuses: 1) it's bamboo, which is vaguely sustainable, and 2) it's attractive!
view lasomnambule's profile
I probably should have made this clearer in the post, but I use a small wire rack with a plastic drip tray. I sort of prop the drip tray on the edge of the sink so it funnels drip water back into the sink instead of all over the counter.
view faith's profile
I've got the IKEA Grundtal folding rack over the sink. The only problem is that, when loaded, the drainer blocks a fair amount of light into the sink. (I'm not completely happy with the tension rod in the picture--heavy stuff on the drainer makes it slip. But, it's a rental with old walls--I'm uneasy about putting in screws even with anchors.)
view RebeccaCT's profile