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One of the first (and easiest) things we did to the kitchen was replace the existing dishwasher. It worked great, but it’s “70’s yellow” color had no place in our grand scheme.

God knows I have no problems dropping $600 on a new phone, but there’s no way in hell I could justify spending over $300 on a new dishwasher. My thought was simple yet logical — since they built this house with bottom-of-the-line materials/appliances and we’ve had no problems, I couldn’t go wrong with buying a state-of-the-art bottom-of-the-line replacement dishwasher. Dishwashing technology had to be a lot better now, right?

Wrong. The new dishwasher was very white (which did fit into the grand scheme of things), but blew chunks when it came to washing dishes. It was more ‘plate spritzer’ than dishwasher. No matter how much pre-rinising action we had going on, dishes/glasses in the top shelf never came clean. Don’t even get me started on what I think about having to wash dishes before putting them into the dishwasher.

Now that Ian’s moved back in and all four of us are eating at home more often, the dishwasher gets run pretty much nightly, so this was quickly becoming an exercise in futility. As a homeowner, you know you have a dishwashing situation when 20-somethings are chosing to wash them by hand vs. putting them in the machine.

Enter our heros — Jason and his Lowe’s Discount Card. Every year, Lowe’s gives employees a week where their 10% discount becomes 20%. On top of that, they distribute some really awesome rebates. We were able to get a very nice dishwasher for about the same amount we paid for the bottom-of-the-line one. Get this: it SENSES how dirty the dishes are and will wash/rinse them additionally if required. It can also just wash the top shelf, which is great because it’s glasses that we go through the most.

Anyhow, a year of nightly turmoil and prescreening glasses when friends come over is said and finished with. CLEAN DISHES AT LAST!