Our house was built in 1930 and has been only minimally remodeled since then. In most cases, this is a good thing, given the fact that one idiot former owner took out the beautiful original wood framed windows and put in cheap aluminum framed jalousie windows, all of which are now falling apart.
But the kitchen is still pretty much original. And in 1930, kitchen usage was a whole lot different from what it is today. Looking at the size of our kitchen it’s obvious only one person was expected to work in at at a time, and of course the dishwashers were all humans. There’s no way to install a dishwasher in there, because the counter is a different height from what we have today, and putting in a dishwasher would mean destroying one of the only two lower cupboards in the room.
Next to the kitchen is a very small room that we use as a laundry room and pantry. I’m not sure what the purpose of that room was, originally. It seems to have been set up so that people could walk into it from the outside, but be stopped from going further into the house by interior doors that locked from the house side. I think the water heater was in there at one time, and there’s an electrical box that’s no longer being used. The space is just large enough for our washer and dryer, some Elfa shelves and a bit of floor space.
It occurred to us a while back that if we got a stacking washer and dryer, we would then have room to put in a dishwasher. We were figuring on buying a regular dishwasher, because they’re less expensive, and putting it in an enclosure from IKEA. But we just hadn’t seen the washer/dryer stack we wanted to buy at a price we wanted to pay.
Last weekend in one of those “aha!” moments we spotted the perfect washer and dryer on sale at Orchard (which is owned by Sears). Instead of being an all-in-one unit it was two separate front loading units. And while we were talking about the purchase with the saleslady, I mentioned why I wanted stacking units and she pointed to a Kenmore portable dishwasher that was a floor model being sold for almost half price. She offered to cut the price even more and I said “Sold.”
So, now we have a dishwasher for the first time ever in this house. I’m sure the joy of letting the machine do the dishes will fade, eventually, but for now we’re all eager to run it and the amount of unoccupied counter space in the kitchen is downright unreal.
Tomorrow the new washer and dryer are being delivered, which means I better go get busy cleaning up the space where they’re going to go. You know how it is, wanting to have the place not embarrass you in front of the delivery people. 🙂
Oh, and we can now efficiently unclutter that whole space, too, and put things away on the shelves that were always blocked by the washing machine before. Good thing I got the new book from Erin Doland on order:  Unclutter Your Life in One Week !
photo credit: tranchis
