Source
r/breakingmom•
Built-In

How do you do the dishes?

advice/question

A quick rant to set the scene: We live in a tiny apartment in a big city. We have no dishwasher. And our fucking sink is seriously the size of one you would find in a fifth-wheel trailer (and not a nice expensive one, either). So you can imagine our sink gets full pretty fast. If I have a clean sink while I’m cooking I’m good about washing as I go. However, my husband and I are both guilty of letting things pile up for a day or two.

The sink becomes layers of different sizes of plates with silverware filling up the space around the edges. Cups and bottles on the little edge of counter top between the sink and wall. Bowls sometimes get stacked to the side, but often they get layered into the mess. Plastic stuff goes on the side or just kind of hangs out with the dirty pots and pans on the stove.

So how would you tackle this job? Over a lifetime of experience, I’ve always start by sorting like with like. I move bowls and plates out of the sink onto the countertop and stack them by size. Then I’m left with only cutlery in the sink. That gets washed first.

After cutlery comes plates, biggest to smallest. That way they can go into my dish rack in an orderly fashion with the biggest plates to the back. After plates comes bowls, then assorted glass, then pots and pans, then plastic, and cups go around the outside edges. If i run out of room I’ll gasp grab our back up dish rack!

My husband, on the other hand, will approach the same mess and will work from the top down. Like, there’s no room to work in the sink, so he just holds the item as low as he can (above counter level). He’ll work down until the dishrack is filled. The chaotic dishrack that got filled with LIFO dishware. He does not get the back up dishrack and keep going. He also will leave all the cups and bottles on the ledge instead of just finishing off the job.

As you may deduce, this is a pet peeve of mine. Most of the time i let things roll off my back but this issue really gets under my skin. I think it’s because it’s such a concrete example of the way he tends to half-ass things in general.

How do you do your dishes?

Posted Apr 4, 2018, 2:55 AM UTC

919
Aari_G•

I do them almost exactly like you, except I do pots and pans last cause it's always the dirtiest. Everything goes in the dish rack, except for pots and pans, which go on the stovetop cause I'm too lazy to deal with them lol

7
because__science•

Mix of both of you, I suppose. Having dishes pile up is my major pet peeve.. my hard rule is no dishes stay in the sink longer than 24 hours. Ideally, they get cleaned immediately after use, but that doesn't always happen.

If things start getting piled, I tackle whatever is on top and work my way down. Putting dirty dishes next to the sink, even if it's just to move them to clean others, is probably my biggest pet peeve of all. My husband is one of those people that piles dirty dishes next to the sink, to keep the sink available to use, and I am the opposite. I have accepted my fate that he will never change (which, to be fair, is fine because it's a minor thing) but it drives me crazy omg.

Eh-hem. Where was I. Yes. Clean from the top down, but I will make sure everything gets cleaned. If tetris in the drying rack isn't enough, I will hand wash&dry&put away the other stuff.

5
Built-InOP•

I like this opposite view. You are a”never ledge.” You are made of more formidable stuff than me. Respect.

4
neongreenhippy•

When i was a kid we were taught to work from smallest to biggest/cleanest to dirtiest. Silverware, cups, bowls/plates, and then pots and pans.

3
McToculus•

I kind of do your husband’s method, more or less. Although I finish the job and don’t just leave stuff when I run out of space. Which, I never do because we are lucky enough to have a big double sink, so the left side is our drying area, and it’s pretty large/deep. Though sometimes pots and pans get put on the stove to dry haha.

3
Jess_needs_tequila•

I do them like your husband does :[

2
Built-InOP•

You are a chaotic influence in the universe! And i appreciate your honesty and I love you.

3
dangermouse-•

The exact same way you do, except silverware in for a short soak while I wash glassware (I want these to be washed with the cleanest water), silverware, tableware, lunchboxes/Tupperware, and pots and pans last. Everything into the dish rack, pots and pans onto one of those microfibre drying mats if there's no more space.

2
spifflett•

This thread is giving me some terrible flashbacks to the years we lived without a dishwasher. The only way we got dishes done was with like 1 weeks worth of nagging, several hours of screaming, and somewhere around 1am he would wash and rinse 1 thing at a time, and I would dry and put away immediately.

2
Everest1986•

Dishes never in the sink unless they are being washed. All dishes get rinsed and stacked neatly. When washing I start with cutlery and then cups, followed by bowls, plates, serving dishes, tupperware, and then pots/pans. We have a tiny kitchen so I usually do the dishes twice a day to keep from cluttering the area up.

2
wepwepwepwe•

I do them like your husband, and put them away afterwards. I figure the sorting step can happen during the putting-away process, so there’s no need to do it twice.

2
dietotakutake my kids... please•

well we have a dishwasher, but it sucks so most things have to be pre-washed. i fill the dishwasher in order from bottom to top, front to back. so big plates first, then smaller plates, big bowls/pots/pans, then sippy cups & kid tableware, regular cups, smaller bowls, and silverware is last. i don't pull things out and stack them unless the sink is SO full there's no room to wash anything off in there, and the only thing that bothers me about the way DH does dishes is that he doesn't sort/organize/tetris his way through it. he just grabs what is on top and sticks it wherever and ends up with a "full" dishwasher that has half as many things in it as i can fit. but i also hate doing dishes so sometimes i'm content to just let him to do 2 loads rather than do one myself.

2
steggo•

I have a great dishwasher, and it's honestly my favorite thing in my house (husband and children included), but back in the dark ages, I had a bus tub from a restaurant supply store that would hold the dirties (bonus! If you have surprise company or have the stragglers from prep before expected company, you get l can stick the bin under the sink or in the oven)

2
carrotcakejamslowly going insane•

Is this a two bowl sink? I am OCD about my dishes (for some reason 🤔) and I def have a system that no one understands but it's awesome.

Organize dirty dishes first on the left side (because I'm right handed), leaving all utensils in the left bowl of the sink. Rinse in right side. Utensils, then glasses (because these are the things that actually touch our mouth and I want them to be the most clean plus, small to big), then bowls, then plates, then pots and pans. I usually have to hand dry the pots and pans.

1
Built-InOP•

No, it’s a “single bowl” sink, if I understand you correctly. There’s no divider in my sink.

1
carrotcakejamslowly going insane•

Ah, that's a little different. I really like having a sink full of hot soapy water to soak things in before scrubbing, but I never quit figured out the "best" way to do that with a one bowl (no divider). My mom has a one bowl and she doesn't soak the dishes...some type of wizardary happens when she does dishes that I haven't been able to understand yet.

2
Aari_G•

What do they don't understand? Your method sounds perfectly logical to me!

1
carrotcakejamslowly going insane•

Beats me! My husband just piles it all in and then can only manage to fit like, ten things in the dishwasher? It's infuriating. My mom has her own weird version she does when she comes over which it like trying to take down a house of cards when it's time to put them all away and the stack of dry dishes inevitably topples. 😐

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
Built-InOP•

Dude, you go farther than I would! Even with no dishrack, I would still balance the stuff to air dry.

1