My book Driftwood Shacks is just about to go to the printers in Hong Kong, and now I’m starting to assemble the next one: Handmade: The Half-Acre Homestead, which covers 50+ years of building, gardening, cooking, foraging, fixing, and other aspects of creating our own shelter and food. In coming months, I’ll put up preview photos from this book.
This is our kitchen. The stainless steel sink was $100 at a salvage lumberyard. A key feature is that the sideboards drain into the sink. Most kitchen sinks have a rim around the edge, and the sideboards do not drain into the sink.
The dish rack at the right was designed and built by Lew Lewandowski about 20 years ago; after the plates and saucers and glasses are washed and rinsed, they are put in the rack to dry — and they stay there.
There’s a 5-gallon electric hot water heater directly under the sink. I don’t like the idea of electric heat, but in this case, it’s a small amount of electricity and moreover, you get almost instant hot water.
Here’s a YouTube video I did of our dishwashing system: www.youtube.com/…
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I will have to check my local habitat for humanity for a sink with drain back feature.Here in Pocatello they have several stainless ones very cheap but with lip around them.I love the idea of a little baby hot water heater under the sink.Right now I get my hot water from the electric stove from one or two standard 5 gallon black speckled metal enamel ware water canners .Its right next to the sink so I can just take a boiling canner off the stove and place it in the basin of the sink and put all the funky cutlery and plates ,pots and pans in it and kill all the microbes at once. then I rinse em in cold water next basin over.My main house electric water heater went south in 2014 and every time I get enough money to buy a new one at Lowes ,a financial hardship intercepts my path on the way there,usually in the form of an aquaintance informing me of a derelect 70’s Enduro motorcycle I can have real cheap or a 77 ford 4×4 F150 for $150 or some damn 1974 Chevy G10 Van with 292 straight 6 for only $500 or a bunch of cheap Holley carbs and manifolds,…or…or..The net result,Lloyd is ,..after five years of not having a hot water heater,..My biceps and fore arms have gotten bigger from carrying the big boiling water canners from stove to bathtub and my electric bill has dropped from $55 – $70 to only $26-$35. Best Regards, Charles J.Swimmer
Charles, After washing in a Rubbermaid tub, I take the dirty dishwater out and dump it in the garden, thereby keeping oil and other food particles out of the septic tank.