We recently upgraded our appliance game with a dreamy, quiet Bosch dishwasher. With dishes galore piling up from holiday cooking and baking, I’m so so thankful to have this beauty up and running! Clearly, you can see that our kitchen is still a work in progress, but we have priorities, people. I was thisclose to switching over to paper plates… We installed the same super quiet Bosch dishwasher in our first house (house tour here), and I could not wait to get our second up and running! Before I tell you all about it, let me set the scene with some backstory:
“Summah-ville”
Years ago, when I was young and intrepid, Wyatt and I moved to Boston. We actually lived in Somerville, Mass, right across the river (because who can afford Boston when she’s 25 and unemployed?). Still, we were just a stone’s throw away from The Cradle of Liberty and eager to try out this bold big adventure of LIVING TOGETHER in a character-filled, historic city.
Side note: Boston does not disappoint in the “character” department. The stories I could tell… and actually still do. It’s worth a visit, for the history alone.
Somerville was both gritty and expensive, but Wyatt and I were both used to living on thin budgets. We picked the cheapest apartment we could find, sandwiched between a noisy, potholed arterial street and a commuter train line. Luxury, I tell you.
The point is, we did not have a dishwasher in that old apartment. No big deal. We washed by hand, as millions of people do. There were only two of us, working odd hours, and we were excited to be out on our own. Shoot, we felt spoiled just having a washer/dryer in the building! What was the big deal about a few dishes to scrub in the evenings?
We lasted almost two years in Somerville before pulling up stakes and heading out west. I think we were more excited to have both heat and AC in our next place. (You might realize Boston gets pretty frigid in the winter, but the summers! Yikes! Today will be a real scotch-ah! (scorcher) I can still hear the local weather guy in my head on hot days.)
Dishes for Days
Fast forward a few years. We recently moved to our new house, another MAJOR overhaul project. Wyatt knocked out half of a kitchen wall prior to moving in, which meant the wires to the dishwasher would need to be relocated. As you might imagine, crawling through the attic to reroute wires is not super fun in late summer, in what feels like the sunniest state in the union. Which really meant, how much of a priority was the dishwasher? “I can wait,” I told Wyatt in August, “I washed dishes by hand for two years in Boston. No big deal.”
The new dishwasher has since been sitting in the middle of the kitchen ever since. Collecting mail.
Now it’s December. I’ve been staying home this year to chauffeur my little guys to and from kindergarten and preschool, so I’m on full-time duty: line cook, clothes washer, house cleaner, and dishwasher.
I finally hit the wall two weeks ago. This was no replay of Boston. I could not wash another. single. dish.
(Now, I am not disrespecting anyone who washes dishes by hand. I’ve been there, sister. Or brother. I’m SO grateful to have a dishwasher. I just wanted the thing installed.)
While the attic work was still not fun, Wyatt spent a few hours fishing the wire down through the wall and getting the dishwasher temporarily installed. What a difference a day makes!
A QUIET Bosch Dishwasher
So what did we buy? A super quiet Bosch dishwasher, the Ascenta model. Woohoo! This dishwasher is amazing. It’s actually the second Bosch we’ve purchased, same exact model, because we loved the first one we tried in our old house. (Here is a similar model.) It’s so quiet, you almost can’t tell that it’s running. I usually check for the red light reflecting on the floor to make sure I’ve turned it on. With two little kids, this appliance is a major lifestyle upgrade. I’ve even disabled the cycle-end alarms, so the machine is truly as silent as possible. No need to plan around naps! We can watch a movie in the next room and not hear a thing. You can still chat with dinner guests if you need to run a load. Wyatt actually thought this technology was so obvious that all new dishwashers would run silently by now, but it looks like Bosch might still have the market cornered.
I did notice that our first quiet Bosch dishwasher gradually became louder over the three years we lived in our previous house. However, it’s nothing like traditional, noisy dishwashers. Just a change from near-silence to hearing the water swish around, but still fairly quiet. Even considering this, we bought the same exact machine again. Here is a similar model.
Now, it’s probably time to peel off the protective tape, and finish installing the bottom kick-plate piece, but I’m keeping it pristine for just a few days longer.
To read more about our kitchen-in-progress, check out How to Plan a DIY Kitchen Remodel.
