5 Clever Ways to Use a Dish Rack
A dish rack is widely known for its ability to air dry dishes and cutlery without leaving water spots. But is it all it can do? Turns out a dish rack is capable of much more if your creativity is switched on and works at its full potential. Find below 5 ways to breathe a new life into an old dish rack.
How to use a dish rack
1. Use as a basket
Broadly speaking, a dish rack is a basket with holes through which the water drips off the plates, speeding up their drying. If your dish rack runs out of fashion, you can repurpose it to a pantry basket where you can place your kitchen towels and cooking equipment, like oven mit and pot holder. You can also use the basket to organize your spices. After all, it’s up to you what items will call your dish rack home from now on. Just make sure you don’t escape the chance to use its amazing organizational potential to avoid kitchen clutter and keep your things away from mess.
2. Keep plastic containers still
Plastic containers find it hard to stay still during the dishwasher cycle. Being light, they constantly wobble and move around, making you open the machine and fix their position from time to time. If you are tired of monitoring the dish washing process, which distracts you from other kitchen chores, you can place a dish rack over the plastic pieces to limit their mobility. The weight of the rack will be enough to keep the aspirations of containers to jump and toss around in check.
3. Get your office supplies in order
Turning to work from home has caught many employees off guard. If you lack a properly equipped home office where you can organize your files and supplies, a dish rack may be the solution. Yes, this kitchen item meant to help dishes air dry fast can be of great use in an office thanks to its amazing storage potential. Use the vertical slots to keep your files as neatly organized as books on the shelf. Use the cutlery box to store your pens, highlighters, stapler and other office essentials. Having all supplies stored on the dish rack will help you keep them always in your sight and prevent workspace clutter.
4. Organize container lids
How many times you lost track of a container lid and searched for it for ages amidst the kitchen clutter? Things get even more complicated when you have lots of storage containers of different size and shape. To keep the lids organized while the containers are drying, use a dish rack, like this stainless steel double-tier one at Venace. Its vertical slots will serve as a perfect storage area for lids, allowing you to break them down by shape, color, and size. After all, this trick eliminates the need of searching for a place inside the kitchen cabinet to store the lids after washing them. You just wash the lids, and put them on the dish rack to air dry and stay there until the next use.
5. Store kids dishware
Besides containing food, kids dishes have the mission of convincing children to eat. That’s the very reason they come in fancy shapes and have fun imagery on them. While the task of making kids interested in food may be successfully completed, stacking these dishes becomes a challenge due to their playful curves. A dish rack you don’t use anymore may be your savior in this case. Use the vertical slots, tines and silverware box to organize kiddie dishware without much effort. After all, this little trick helps you save space in your kitchen and keep the dishes away from mess as well as prevent them for getting stranded. Once the kid wants to eat, they know where their favorite plate is. No need to ask you or turn the kitchen cabinet upside down until they find that fun plate with purple elephant.
Bottom line
Simple things can serve a lot of purposes besides their main one. You can convince yourself of this by exploring the multitude of potential uses of a dish rack. You will be surprised to know that aside from helping dishes air dry, it performs greatly in other scenarios, like storing kitchen linens and lids, weighing down plastic containers during the dishwasher cycle, and organizing office files and supplies.