Living Without: Could You Go a Year With No Dishwasher?

Filed under: Storage & Cleaning, Storage & Organization, Cleaning

In our new series, we peek into the lives of people living without standard (and non-standard) home luxuries. First up: My year without a dishwasher.

I was nine months pregnant when we went apartment hunting for a larger place. My husband and I had been crammed into a one bedroom Manhattan rental apartment for a year, but when I got pregnant it became clear that we couldn't fit a crib or a sweet mobile, let alone a baby. So we went looking for a bigger space.

"Let's make a list of what's important to us," my husband, John, suggested. I listed: Close to Whole Foods, walking distance to parks, dog-friendly, quiet, charming, lots of light.



"We probably want an elevator," John said. "And a dishwasher, and a washing machine and dryer, right?"

I shrugged. "I just want to find a place that feels homey," I said.

We looked at over a dozen apartments on the Upper West Side of New York City, no small feat for someone who is 9 months pregnant. And when we walked up two flights of stairs to apartment 3R in a brownstone on West 92nd Street, I knew we'd found our new home. While it was only a one bedroom, the living space was enormous by city standards. It had beautiful hardwood floors, an oversize fireplace, crown molding, a renovated bathroom and kitchen, and a big Bay window and second fireplace in the bedroom. There were plenty of closets -- and more importantly, there was plenty of extra space for a crib, changing table and rocking chair.

"But there's no dishwasher," John reminded me. "And there's no elevator. You really want to carry a baby up all these stairs?"



"We don't need a dishwasher," I told him. As for the elevator, I had a theory: If I could walk up and down the stairs with 30 extra pounds of weight on my body, why couldn't I do it with a 25 pound baby?

So we took the apartment.

After our baby was born, we walked him gingerly up the stairs. We put him in a baby carrier to sleep while we did dinner dishes or washed his bottles. As our baby grew from 3 months to 6 months to a year old, we found ourselves spending quite a bit of time washing dishes. And since he was more mobile, we often waited until he was asleep to tackle the dishes. There were his bottles, then his bowls, cups and spoon, then his food-encrusted high chair tray, which is "dishwasher safe," but I always had to scrub it with a sponge.

The other day I counted how much time I've spent washing dishes in the last six months, and this is what I've come up with: 3 meals per day plus baby bottles @ 30 minutes each = 90 minutes per day. Multiply that times 7 days a week for 52 weeks, and I've washed dishes for 546 hours this year.

Which is one of the reasons why we bought a house. We needed a dishwasher. (We also needed a bed, but that's another story.)

On our first night in our new house, I loaded the dishwasher for the first time. It cut the dish washing job in half -- Pinch me! But I also, surprisingly, found myself longing to wash the dishes myself. Washing the dishes is cathartic. I often spend the time thinking about the day's events, coming up with story ideas for my blog, or brainstorming meal ideas for my baby -- it's chill time. So I stopped loading, picked up the sponge and scrubbed.

And you know what? It made me feel more at home. Weird, huh?

For more from Brooke Lea Foster, see her writings on MommyMoi.

For more great ShelterPop stories, don't miss:
Spring Trend: We're Seeing Stripes
Curbed Taken Over By a 13 Year Old
Crazy Rooms We're Crazy About

 

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