Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Washing-up bowls

What is a washing-up bowl? In America it's a 'dish pan' and it looks like this.  A lovely white plastic rectangle.

 If you're lucky you can find a red one and occasionally, if you know where to look, you'll find a round enamel one. However, if you go into your local store to buy a dishpan, this is what you will find.  Not very inspiring, is it.

DH dislikes washing-up bowls so from Day One of our marriage I have managed without one - which isn't hard when you have a dishwasher, but can be inconvenient at times. Such as now. Now I have a Corian sink that can't take boiling water directly into it and it's been recommended that I pour such boiling water into a pan in the sink to cool before pouring down the sink.  Inconvenient? I should say so, but I can adapt to this new situation with the purchase of a simple, but attractive washing-up bowl.  So having been to two or three local stores and found that white one, I thought I'd look online.  Guess what? More white rectangles.  So, on a whim, I looked for washing-up bowls.  I found these.

They are mostly found on British web sites but I found this set on likecool.com, an American site. But they are designer bowls. They can be unfolded, squashed, will change shape and withstand boiling water but they cost $50 each. I like the colours but $50 for a washing-up bowl is a bit extravagant. So I looked for some more.... Well, this is nice. From DrinkStuff.com it's rubber and stainless steel, and £44.99. (That's $68.73 at today's exchange rate!)  It's not getting any better is it. Back to Google.

Ahh!  Good old IKEA. For $14.99 (£8.99 on IKEA UK)) this handsome BOHOLMEN 'rinsing tub' (US) washing up bowl (UK) can be purchased.  Not sure I really want black but it's a bit better-looking than the white rectangle. I think.