It’s been almost two years since I moved in Tachikawa Garden Town, one of the Oakhouse Apartments in Tokyo. Many things happened during this period of time but raising a kid is definitely the biggest thing in my life. I knew things are going to be busy before my daughter Hana was born in May, 2018. That’s what everyone told me anyway. So I did some investment on house equipments after I moved in the current apartment. Getting a big high-end fridge (Mitsubishi) was one of the things my wife and I decided to buy as well as getting a good dehumidifier for drying clothes in the house on rainy days. I did not buy a dishwasher back then when we moved in but I bought one just last week and it’s been amazing and we’re very happy that we got it.
I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who got a dishwasher living in Oakhouse. Let me tell you why I got it and things I noticed during the process. If you’re planning to live in Oakhouse for a long time, this post should help you.

Washing dishes is something both of us feel burdened to do

First of all, we still did not have to buy too many things when we moved in because all Oakhouse apartments are usually fully furnished. Our apartment is not a sharehouse but ours was furnished as well. We bought those things just to make our life better and most importantly… to save our time on a daily basis.

How the metal rack fit in the kitchen (the left image is AR function of Amazon app)

Everyone knows that doing the house keeping stuff everyday is something very time-consuming. For us, raising a kid is added to the daily task. Since we started a new life at this apartment in 2018, we started realizing that dividing the workload into 50/50 is not a good idea because each of us feels different amount of burden to do specific tasks. For example, I’m okay with cooking food at home because I like cooking and it doesn’t bother me if I have to do it for dinner most of the time. I simply think it’s fun to cook. My wife, on the other hand, not so much. Cooking something is a burden for her. Washing clothes is something opposite. My wife is like the one who would wash everything every single day even if it’s not dirty. It’s kind of like a ritual for her. For me, washing clothes is something I do only when clothes are dirty. I do want to wash underwear everyday. I’m talking about clothes like jeans. Washing certain clothes every day just wear them out. My point is each of us feels less burden to certain tasks and sometimes it’s not a burden at all. So it’s not a problem either of us feel okay with doing the certain tasks. It is a big problem when there is a task that both of us feel burdened to do.

For us, it is washing dishes. It took a while for us to realize this though. I think I feel less burdened to washing dishes because it’s part of the cooking process sometimes. On my good day, there won’t be much dish to wash left when the food is ready to eat. I can be as efficient as that with cooking. However, I’m not as willing to wash if there are too many dishes left in a sink. Raising a kid means you have more dish to wash and kids plate, cups, utensils are pretty hard to wash because they are made out of plastics. There were some days that both us did not fee like washing the dishes and we just kept them in the sink until the morning. Some of the plates are supposed to be washed right after otherwise it gets damaged or even molded in worst case scenario. My wife and I started arguing more and more over this until I came up with installing a dishwasher on the other day.

First I had to check if it's a feasible idea. Installing a dishwasher should require some kind of professional installation, maybe some pipe work or something. Then I found this extra faucet in the kitchen and I thought maybe this can be utilized for water supply. I started searching online and I found out there needs an adaptor to make it work but I was never sure which one I have to get.

The extra faucet in Tachikawa Garden Town

I went to a local Bic Camera store and asked the staff but they were not sure either. I finally found out which adaptor I need to get when Bic camera sent a local technician to Garden Town and checked everything on site. This was reassuring. The technician told me that the extra faucet is totally usable and the adaptor is actually 1/6 of the cost compared to a standard adaptor used for the dishwasher. (I spent about 2000 yen for this adaptor but the standard adaptor would cost about 12000 yen). It turned out that Tachikawa Garden Town is a dishwasher friendly apartment.

The machine works just fine

How dishes fit in the dishwasher

It's been about two weeks since the dishwasher installation is done and we have been using the machine almost every day. The machine works just fine. I really like the fact that it saves my time and I now enjoy a cup of tea or coffee after dinner. I could have a cup of tea after dinner even before but I didn't feel like it after spending 20 minutes of hand washing the dishes.
I got the model of NP-TH3 by Panasonic. It's a large size dishwasher for a small family like us but it's actually a perfect size because we want to wash pans, cutting board and cooking items with the dishes at the same time.
so far we're very happy with the machine and we recommend this model.

Date posted :

2020.02.22

Poster :

Shima