When we bought our house about a two years ago, it was nearly perfect. Porch, backyard, short walk to the train. Coming from a small apartment meant we had stars in our eyes at thought of a things like an attic, garage and a basement. Storage galore. We were smitten. So smitten we casually overlooked that the kitchen didn’t have a dishwasher. I had lived 40 years without one, surely I could go a little longer, I thought. However, once we moved in my inner baker and closeted hostess-with-the-mostest personality came out. I cook at least three times a week and we have guests over several times a month. Suddenly, the no dishwasher thing was getting to be a real drag.

We called in a kitchen contractor type and were dismayed to learn that slipping in a dishwasher was not going to be an easy task. Our cabinets were all custom-sized, and the nice stone counter top could break if they tried to lift it up. There was some extra space in the corner of the kitchen, were we had placed a small bistro table. It was nice to have a table in the kitchen, but honestly we never used it. Our solution became clear: Extend the counter with butcher block (so we didn’t have to worry about matching the stone counter) and put the dishwasher there. There’d even be room for a stool, if we wanted to tuck one under.

A few weeks later, and voila! I can’t believe how much I am in love with our new appliance. We picked a Bosch — not the most expensive model, but a nice one that hums quietly when it’s on. It also has a pretty red light that beams on the floor so we know when it’s in use. Unlike dishwashers of my youth, this one does not have a drying cycle. I suppose it is to save energy, but if you open it up too soon things will definitely be too wet.

Now I am trying to learn the tricks of good dish loading. How dirty can things be when I put them? How closely can I pack things together? I definitely have noticed a few butter knifes that still look dirty after a cycle, and if we put the plates too close together, the backs will stay gunky.

Got any good dishwasher advice to share with me? I’d love tips on loading. What does your dishwasher clean that surprises you? What do you never put in there? As always, your shared wisdom is deeply appreciated! — Angela M.

My friend Angie gave me a great tip (along with an awesome Burro’s Tail succulent) not too long ago. She showed me how to make my own detergents, using easy to find, household ingredients. I’ve had the supplies purchased for a while, but was waiting to run out of my current stash of Mrs Meyer’s before mixing up a batch. Don’t worry, it doesn’t take more than a few minutes and equipment you’ve already got on hand.

Here’s what you need:
Laundry Soap:
-1 bar of soap (approx 2 oz) grated. *I used the fine grate on my box grater, next time I will use my microplane for finer flakes of soap, though they dissolved perfectly. The soap I used, Fels Naptha, is a laundry soap, and for a bar that large, I doubled the recipe.
-1/2 c Borax
-1/2 c Arm & Hammer washing soda
-3 drops essential oils (optional — I used lavender)

2 tablespoons/ wash is all you need! My clothes have been coming out brighter, softer, and have been smelling clean and fresh — and one batch didn’t cost much, and I’ve got enough Borax and Washing Soda left to make at least 3 more batches!

Dishwashing Detergent:
-1/2 c borax
-1/2 c washing soda
-2 tbs Citric Acid powder or Fruit Fresh
-pinch of salt
Combine and store in airtight container.
In the rinse aid container, use distilled white vinegar.

I was most skeptical about this one, but it turned out great! Dishes clean and sparkly, no crud, much better than some of the other natural brands I’ve been using.

Try ‘em out, and let us know how they work for you — or share recipes of your own in the comments! — Megan B.

While I was out and about a few weeks ago, I came across the prettiest vintage wool blanket in a secondhand shop. It was love at first sight – I grabbed it and wouldn’t let go until I was at the register. Sadly, while it’s lovely to look at, I failed to follow the cardinal rule of vintage shopping: always, always do a sniff test. Now, I’m stuck with a beautiful, but musty blanket – and I simply can’t cure it!

I’ve dramatically improved things by washing it in a wool shampoo (an excellent thing to have on hand – wash on warm, delicate cycle, and air dry). I’ve tried hanging it out to air dry for a couple of days. I’ve Febreezed and I’ve Lysol’ed and it’s all been to no avail. The biggest degree of improvement, oddly, seems to have come from accidentally leaving it in the trunk of my car for a week in hot summer weather. Something about baking in the heat for so long seems to have helped quite a bit.

I’d really love to banish the rest of this funk and enjoy this beautiful find…have any of you encountered this problem? I’d love any tips or tricks you have to share! –Becki S.

Longtime readers of this blog know my love of horror films and campy macabre, so you’ll understand my delight in this new Dirt Devil ad. I know I’m giving away the punchline with this screengrab, but you have to click through to YouTube to see. Enjoy! — Angela M.

P.S. As much as I love this ad, I’m still not giving up my Miele. ;-)

In our new apartment we have almost no counter space and it’s our biggest, small space problem. The only usable corner is right beside the sink, in the area reserved for drying dishes, which leaves us no room for food preparation or really anything else. Add in the massive scale of our clunky wire dish rack and tray and the kitchen becomes a riddle to be solved any time we want to make food of any sort. We’ve discussed the search for the perfect dish rack before, and in my case, the perfect rack isn’t a rack at all, it’s this dish drying mat. With a dishwasher that holds most of our dishes, we only hand wash big-ticket items, and this super absorbent mat gets the job done when needed and can be easily rolled up and stored to reveal usable counter space. The best part? $4.99 at Bed Bath & Beyond. – Sarah C.

Ok friends, here’s a challenge: try to rethink the way you do one commonplace task. That has been my mission lately, and I’ve had a few revelations. The first, and most obvious, has been that just because appliance instructions say to do something, doesn’t mean it’s a steadfast rule (unless it’s for safety reasons). For example – let’s take the clothes dryer. I air-dry the majority of my laundry with the exception of a few things, and those things get tossed in the dryer on Auto/High for 30 minutes.That’s just what I do, and have always done. But, what if I didn’t? What if I tried another setting? I know, crazy. But what I’ve discovered is that I don’t need to use that high setting to get good results. I’ve actually found that using the “delicates” setting (which is less hot than the “auto” setting) dries equally as well, and in some cases, results in softer clothes. I didn’t realize that the highest dryer setting was actually toasting my clothes and making them feel a little crispy! With the exception of my thickest bath mats, the delicates setting has worked just fine for a medium-sized load of laundry, and I bet even saves a little energy to boot. What everyday tasks can you rethink? — Rebecca F.

Image courtesy of flickr user Aurimas Rimsa.

We can’t help it. We’re still obsessed with those gorgeous drawer liners from Hammocks & High Tea that we showed you back in January. They add such a sophisticated, “pulled together” feeling to our dresser drawers, and make us even more excited to head to our closets every morning. Plus, their subtle scents make us feel a bit like Grace Kelly when we open our delicates drawer (though we’re guessing she didn’t rely as heavily on her trusty collection of Gap boyshorts as we do).

Summer seems to be the season in which we finally unload our closet and actually undergo a clean-out – something about the switch from cardigans to tank tops just brings out the organizer in us. We were thinking: maybe we could help a few of our readers with their summer closet overhauls!

And so, we’ve teamed up with the wonderful people at Hammocks & High Tea to give three Shelterrific readers their favorite set of drawer liners. That’s right: we’re giving you new drawers! (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

To enter, just leave a comment letting us know what you’re most excited to pull out from the back of your winter closet and wear to death all summer long. We’ll choose a winner on Wednesday, June 15 via random number generator, so please have your entries in by 5 pm Pacific time. US residents only, winners must choose from available stock.

Good luck everyone!

It’s that time again — time for the semi-annual apartment purge known as spring cleaning! And now I have a nice pile of things that need a new home, so I’m thinking I should throw a modern swap meet. I’m going to invite my like-minded friends over and trade goods. So far, my pile to swap includes:

Extra kitchen tools — I seem to end up with extra wooden spoons, spoon rests, wine openers …
Magazines — Design and cooking. Great for inspiration or craft projects. I have plenty to keep me busy for a while.
Tech supplies — extra stereo cables, speaker wire, iPod cables, thumb drives
Office supplies — Who needs a giant box of business envelopes?! Not me!
Houseplant seedlings — I have about a half-dozen succulent cuttings that could use a windowsill of their own.
Workout gear — extra weights, bands, workout DVDs

Now all I have to do is give my friends a little time to gather their things, and make an afternoon of it. What’s leftover, we can donate to a nearby shelter or Salvation Army. What do you do with your extras? — Rebecca F.

Photo credit: Amazon.com

If you have any plastic furniture, I’m sure you’ve done what I’ve done: you notice your chair is a little dingy, so you get out Windex or some other cleaner and give it a spray. And then you have a chair that’s only clean in stripes from the drips the cleaner left behind. My beloved Verner Panton chairs have been through two moves, two dogs, and five years, and they were the poster chairs for this situation. Even scrubbing them with an SOS pad (I probably don’t recommend that) didn’t fix the drips. So when I came across Kartell Plastic Cleaner at a local modern furniture store, I wasn’t very hopeful: my S chairs have more texture than what I’ve seen from Kartell. Well, I needn’t have worried. A spray with the foamy cleaner and a rub with the enclosed cloth, and suddenly my entire chair was clean and bright again, not just in spots! It really took minimal effort to get them both looking good again.

The downsides to the cleaner? Though it’s free of ozone-depleting chemicals, the spray is petroleum based, which I’m sure will be a barrier to some. (Yes, plastic is also petroleum based, but plenty of us aren’t buying new plastic but instead buying vintage pieces.) Also, it honestly smells terrible to me, a lot like the spray a car wash place might use when detailing your car. So my advice is to use it outside if you have that option. — Mary T.

Looking for a fabulous-yet-frugal gift for the moms in your world? Something easily thrown together in minutes with things you probably have around the house? Well, then let me suggest these DIY reed scent diffusers — they are way cooler than the ones you see for $15 each. I’d been thinking I should make my own ever since I saw the first crazy-expensive air fresheners in a specialty shop years ago. They just looked TOO SIMPLE. So this year, when wracking my brain for mom’s day gifts, I remembered my stash of used SanBitter bottles, and decided to give it a shot.

I did a bit of Googling to see how it was done, and I found this post from Young House Love in 2009, but I was disappointed to see that they had just used Mrs. Meyer’s Household Cleaner as their scent (nothing against Mrs Meyer’s — I SWEAR by the lavender products). I wanted to custom-blend my own scents. Thankfully I found this helpful post at TipNut to help me make my own uniquely scented gifts. I used a mix of grapeseed and sweet almond oils as my “carrier oil”, added a splash of vodka to help it diffuse, and my favorite essential oils, gave it a shake — and BOOM. That’s it.

What you will need:
Bamboo skewers
small bottles or narrow necked vases
vodka
essential oils
grapeseed or sweet almond oil

Trim the pointed ends off the skewers with wire cutters or sturdy kitchen shears. To mix the scented oil, measure out 1/4 c grapeseed/almond oil, add a splash of Vodka and 12-20 drops of essential oil. Shake. Pour in your vessel (no more than 3/4 full), add the skewers, and flip them a few times to start the diffusion more quickly. Favorite scent combinations are grapefruit & sandalwood, lavender & clary sage, and black pepper & palmarosa. Have you ever made them? Share your results in the comments! — Megan B.