Tips for Washing Dishes When You Only Have One Sink and No Dishwasher

Usually when a kitchen is designed the designer leaves enough room to have a double bowl sink instead of a single bowl sink. If one large sink is put in the kitchen it is usually because the kitchen has a dishwasher. However there are some kitchens that are equipped with but one large single bowl sink and no dishwasher. Here are some tips for washing dishes in one large sink.

Feeling the sink up and washing the dishes isn’t hard, however as you rinse the dishes your soapy water will become higher and higher making it harder to rinse dishes. One thing that you can do is wipe off your counter and place the washed, but not yet rinsed, dishes on the counter until you are done washing all of the dishes and are able to rinse them. Then you can drain the sink and rinse the dishes that are on the counter, it helps if you place the washed dishes that are waiting to be rinsed on the opposite side of the sink that has the dish rack or dish towel that the dishes will be dried on. If you find that your counter becomes too wet you can lay a clean dish towel down and set the soapy dishes on it, something recommended for soapy silverware that is waiting to be rinsed. Then hang the dish towel up so it can properly dry and throw it in with the dirty laundry.

The longer you wait to do dishes, without things getting out of hand of course, the more dishes you will be able to have in the sink and therefore will not be wasting water, if you find that because of the amount of dishes that you have that you will not need the sink full just fill it so the dishes can be in water and as you rinse them you can let the water fill up a bit more if need be. Otherwise you can use the putting the soapy dishes on the counter top method.

Another thing that can be helpful if you don’t want to put your soapy washed dishes on the counter top, or the sink is too full to rinse your soapy dishes while you still have other dishes that need to be washed in the sink is to take a large bowl, large metal mixing bowels, large stew pot and the lids the cake platters work great for a temporary rinsing sink, especially for silverware.

If you are use to having a double bowl sink while you do dishes it may be hard to get use to just having one large single bowl sink, but you will be amazed at how fast you will get use to it. Check out Do the Dishes the Old Fashion Way for general tips for washing dishes.