On Doing Dishes Without A Sink & Loving What You Have
Our sink sat lifeless, waiting for plumbing and a good cleaning!
A few months back, my husband and I moved into a building without plumbing. Since then I’ve learned that sometimes even the simple things like doing dishes — aren’t so simple. As it turns out, my new favorite place to clean my dishware, isn’t the sink and can actually double as a chair. Care to take a guess as to what it is?
A contractors bucket! You know, those orange or white buckets you pick up from the hardware store for cheap? Those are the ones! A few short weeks after moving into our place, we became the spot for a bridal shower. Although our plumbing was finished on time, we hadn’t had time to plumb in our kitchen sink (let alone dishwasher). They needed a great deal of work and real plates were being used at the party, so we had to make things work regardless!
We had one bucket for dirty dishes which was half full of soapy water. The plates were then scraped into the trash and placed in the bucket. Once all the dishes were in, we topped the bucket off with more water and let sit for 20 minutes (just enough time to run around and pick up trash and tidy things up).
Next, we filled an additional bucket with hot water (thanks to the shower downstairs) and started to work. First washing the plates in the original bucket in which they sat. Once clean, we dropped them into the hot water bucket, repeating until they were all clean. Next, we poured off the residual foam on top. What was left below was all clean dishes. We pulled them from the bucket and laid them out to dry. All clean! Super easy and there wasn’t any fuss or backup of things waiting for the dishwasher.
As we go through the Kitchen Cure over the next several weeks, keep in mind that even though we might not have the most beautiful kitchen in the world that we’re still lucky to have what we do. It can often times seem easy to flip through pretty pages in magazines and blogs and acquire a desire to upgrade, tear out or renovate. That’s not often in the budget and so sometimes — sometimes you do your dishes in a bucket and who knows, you might end up liking it. Live with what you have, save for what you want and be inspired by all those who do more with less.
(Image: Sarah Rae Trover)