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Housekeeping

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Original poster

My new house has NO draining board <wail....!>

34 replies

MortaIWombat · 17/12/2009 21:28

So the place we're supposed to be moving into in January has varnished wooden worktops and a daft butler's sink, but nowhere to drain stuff that's been washed up, just flat wooden surfaces. I'm used to a nice metal sink with built in draining board to put my draining rack on.
What does one DO with clean dishes? Am I missing something?
(And no, drying and putting straight away is not an option).

Please help!

OP posts:
TheProvincialLady · 17/12/2009 21:32

Apparently you can buy draining racks that fold up and put away, from Argos.

(Or you could just shift your lazy arse and do the drying up you slattern)

Butterfly99 · 17/12/2009 21:32

Use the dishwasher?!

TheProvincialLady · 17/12/2009 21:32

The racks have trays underneath to catch the drips BTW.

CMOTdibbler · 17/12/2009 21:34

Lakeland have lots of solutions for this

AMumInScotland · 17/12/2009 21:34

You can get a plastic thing which sits on your worktop and slopes down to just overhang your sink. There might be fancier ones in other materials, but I know you can get plastic ones from Amazon, or Betterware. But you'd probably not want to leave it there damp for too long on a wooden worktop...

IdrisTheRedNosedDragon · 17/12/2009 21:35

We have a rack thing. We put a tea towel under it to catch drips. Had never really thought of us not having a draining board before, but I suppose we don't.

NorbertDentressAngel · 17/12/2009 21:35

You can buy rather ugly plastic trays with a lip that goes over the edge into the sink ....or you can just make sure that everything you use can go in the dishwasher.

AMumInScotland · 17/12/2009 21:37

this is the Betterware version.

Flame · 17/12/2009 21:37

erm, not everyone has a dishwasher...

pellmell · 17/12/2009 21:38

We have the same in our kitchen. We bought a draining tray from John lewis. Unfortunately it's white plastic. Also have a metal thing that sits on the tray for draining the dishes(when not using the dishwasher)

Original poster
MortaIWombat · 17/12/2009 21:39

What dishwasher? You mean dh? Unlikely to work, tbh.

And pfffft, TheProvincialLady.

Am liking (ish) the fugly plastic trays, mind you. Thanks, all. Shall see if there's a vaguely attractive one.

OP posts:
piprobin · 17/12/2009 21:46

How about this one - it's an absolute bargain and simply too divine....

LauraIngallsWilder · 17/12/2009 21:49

Piprobin - its £120 eeeek!
I am hoping you were being ironic

piprobin · 17/12/2009 21:54

Laura, you could get Almanzo to carve you one..

NorbertDentressAngel · 17/12/2009 21:58

AwesomeWellies- I presumed that the new house didn't have a draining board because there was a super-duper built-in dishwasher.

Are you telling me there isn't one? What do the current owners do, do you think? Any evidence of a draining tray?

MostHighlyFavouredLady · 17/12/2009 22:07

I used to have that Manufactum one - think I got it from The Holding Company for £70.

Saw it somewhere else - Lakeland possibly - for much cheaper.

Only thing was, you were left with a puddle of water which I'm sure in some people's houses would never turn grey and verging on stinky.

I use the Aga now .

Original poster
MortaIWombat · 17/12/2009 22:23

House is a repo, Norbert. So I can't ask the previous owner what she did; I suspect she's fleeing the country. ;-)
To be honest, judging by the half-arsed renovations that have been attempted on the place (chimney breast knocked out and rest left unsupported, sink fitted far too high, etc, I suspect the previous owner was a nutter who just didn't think).

Although the religious graffiti biro'ed all over the walls was a bit of a giveaway there....

OP posts:
GrendelsMum · 18/12/2009 12:38

I think some people do literally only ever use the dishwasher, especially those who either don't do very much cooking, or don't cook very seriously. We recently bought a rather expensive kitchen, and constantly had these endless and utterly surreal arguments with the kitchen designer about the washing up. She kept insisting that we shouldn't use the sink, because it should all go in the dishwasher. a) big things simply do not fit in the dishwasher, b) some things (e.g. posh knives) should not go in the dishwasher, c) quite a few things get washed better by hand than in the dishwasher, d) one big saucepan in dishwasher = not much else in dishwasher. I really couldn't but think that she doens't actually use her own ktichen very much.

After a lot of arguing, we got a large sink and large draining board!

CybilinExcelsisDaewoo · 18/12/2009 12:49

I ahve no draining board (by choice) so have the Betterware version and its great, I stick in in a cupboard when I dont; need it

gorionine · 18/12/2009 12:55

LOL @ piprobin!!

TheProvincialLady · 18/12/2009 13:00

Oh yes I agree with you GM. I also have this discussion with my mum, who always berates me for 'using every utensil in the kitchen' when I cook. Whereas she hardly makes any washing up. Not surprising really, since I cook from scratch 3 times a day for 4 people whereas she heats up two Waitrose meals for one three nights a week and eats out the remaining four!

NorkilyChallenged · 18/12/2009 13:15

I hate hate hate not having a draining board. As you say, not everything goes in the dishwasher, or you have too much to fit or you just need to wash a couple of things so it's not worth putting it on, etc etc

I have no idea why the previous owners in our house didn't put one in when they fitted the kitchen, they had a 2 year old and a baby on the way so they must have had a pretty similar lifestyle to us. Oh well.

Our plastic tray definitely accumulated grey stinky water with its own ecosystem MostHighlyFavouredLady (can't read your name without singing it!).

No draining board a dreadful idea imo.

DSM · 18/12/2009 13:34

On a side note - I am about to move into a new house in a couple of weeks. The (very beautiful) new kitchen has a dishwasher.

I've never had a dishwasher since leaving the luxury of my parents home, and I have been informed that they are super expensive to run. Is this true?

(Also, same question relating to tumble dryers - thanks! )

AMumInScotland · 18/12/2009 14:08

From what I understand they're not that expensive, and use less hot water than you'd use to do the same amount of dishes in the sink. I guess it's slightly less efficient at heating the water, since it's using electricity to do it instead of your central heating system. But they're certainly not super-expensive.

Tumble dryers are a lot more expensive, as heating water enough to make it evaporate off your clothes is going to take a lot of energy.

GrendelsMum · 18/12/2009 20:31

I agree exactly with what A Mum In Scotland says. She is spot on. However, you can lower the cost of the electricity used to heat the water if the dishwasher has a timer, because you can run it overnight. And apparently some can be hooked up to your hot water supply, so you can run them off your gas.

But even if someone has two children, they don't necessarily really cook - as we discovered when we went up to stay with DSiL and family, and DH happily began to cook - and DSiL was sent running next door again and again to borrow what we would consider totally basic bits of kitchen equipment. There was a great moment when DH was staring at her in horror saying 'a chopping board. To chop things on. With a knife. A board for chopping on.' and DSiL said she would have to borrow one from the neighbours.