52/52 - Christmas Dishwasher

A Christmas gift we gave to ourselves this year was a new dishwasher. (I know, exciting stuff.) Our old one was a hand-me-down that never did a great job and had recently gotten worse. So we decided to start over and get something that we would truly love.

We read lots of reviews and polled our friends and family. Along the way, I read a really interesting article on the changes to the dishwasher industry in the last 10 years, including a description of how you should be using your dishwasher. I recommend everyone read this article on what makes a good dishwasher (and how to use it). After an extensive search - including a trial dish loading in a store - we ended up with a Bosch.

We picked up the new dishwasher shortly before Christmas, but holiday preparations delayed installation. When Shane and Leif were here for Christmas, they offered to help install it. "We think we should be able to finish it in about 45 minutes." Unfortunately, once we pulled the old one out and tried to push the new one into place, we discovered that our kitchen island (technically a peninsula) wasn't quite deep enough at the bottom. It would have to be modified.

Our 45 minute project then turned into a two-day affair involving three kinds of power saws (oscillating, mitre, and jig) and two trips to the local hardware store. Thankfully, Shane has lots of experience in home building and contracting, so he quickly became our foreman.

We cut a new hole through the subfloor into the crawlspace.

We furred out the toe kick and trimmed it to fit over the hardwood, then reinstalled.

In the end, the effort paid off. We now put dishes straight into our dishwasher with no pre-washing. They come out clean, even when caked with egg!

Thanks for all of the help, guys!

- Mike, Corinne, and Anders