juddgirl, mine is on the oven handle. Until you just asked the question about it hitting the floor when opening the oven door, it never occurred to me. I usually don't open the door all the way, except when I need two hands for whatever's going inside. So, I guess sometimes the towel kisses the floor. Oh well. No deaths have been reported.

may_flowers, hush! Don't let my cats hear you. They pull bath towels off their rods and burrow underneath. I'd rather they don't start with the dish towel.

We're all funny in our kitchens. Personally, I want something to grab when my hands are wet and not have to open something first in order to reach it. The sight of a decent looking dish towel on an appliance handle just means we might have a working kitchen here.

My hand towel hanging on the DW handle does kiss the floor when I fully open the door. But I like to hope my floors are reasonably clean and it isn't the dish drying towel. As mentioned by linelle, no deaths have been reported here either!

My dish drying towel and drying mat hanging on the telescoping rods under the sink are easy to get at when needed and they dry well in that cupboard but we do not live in a humid climate.

I have my hanging from the dishwasher handle right now and it's not working because the towel touches the floor when the dishwasher door is open. Under the sink won't work because the humidity is too high here. I'm not too thrilled with the options at this point!

I am in a fairly humid climate, so I'm not sure hanging towels in a closed cupboard would work well here. Also don't really want to have to open the door to get to them. My hand towel usually hangs on the oven door handle. However - I don't like the dragging on the floor thing, either. I don't bake often, but if i'm opening the oven, I'll toss the towel on the counter first. I don't dry many dishes, so get out a clean dish towel for that, when I do, and then hang it on oven door to dry before putting in laundry.

Had to think about Kitykat's question for a minute. I mean, that's just how my mom always said it should be! LOL After considering it - I think I insist on separate because there are times when the hand towel is thrown on the counter among other things, someone may rinse but not soap hands or use the towel to just wipe off something moist (like the example above with the raw eggs). Just one more point of separation. My mom probably would have also said that she washed dishes (with rubber gloves) in alot hotter water than you wash your hands in. (Though you do have to touch them to dry them.)

Intrigued with may_flowers idea of dish cloths. Will think on that one. Thanks.

I've never had separate dish and hand towels in my (not so short) life and I'm not dead yet :-)

I'm with sjhockeyfan!

I use two simply because my hand towel gets so wet it doesn't dry quickly like the thin one does. Every time I wash my hands I wipe down the counter around the sink and on the bar if I eat there. It is more than just a hand towel. It don't think it is clean enough to use on my Aladdin drinking glasses. I don't put them in the DW. There is no right or wrong about stuff like this, we just do it the way it is right for us. I personally would not like those huge trash containers I saw in another thread. I don't want to pull out that thing every time I have a paper towel to put in it.

ReBe231 - Love it! Thanx for posting a pic and providing your specs. Great finishing touch to have the counter surface installed as the cabinet bottom! I definitely have room to incorporate a similar solution. Thanx!

Thanks for the input re the towel touching the floor when hanging on the dw handle. I have dark slate floors and am not as confident they're usually clean except just after I give them a good scrubbing myself - seems like I can wipe up dirt right after the house cleaners mop the floor :-( They look the same, whether clean or dirty.

I think an oven handle would work great though. I open the dw door much more often than the oven, unless I'm in baking mode. My wall oven doesn't have a door but I'll be replacing that with a range that has a nice beefy handle!

I have a towel-bar style handle on my oven which we use for the hand towel. For the dishtowels, I have the built in rack under the dish drainer. The mechanism was designed to be mounted from above so the rods would've been on top of each other, but I talked to the carpenter and he mounted it on the side for me so the rods were parallel and the towels would dry better.

I screwed a small hook into the cabinet surrounding the fridge which up is next to the sink area. I hang the towel there.

I agree with others who think that hanging on an oven or dishwasher handle leads to the towel hitting the floor, which is icky to me.

In our previous kitchen, we installed the Gourmet Rail system by Lavi into our granite on a 9 foot island and in front of the clean-up sink. It is available in several finishes and with the decorative end caps and finials, it was both decorative and functional. The rods are 5/8" round, and the perfect size for hanging towels. Loved it, and plan to do it in the new kitchen.

http://www.buyrailings.com/c-15-gourmet-rail.aspx

I hang a bright red towel on my stainless steel GE Café Gas Range to add color to my kitchen and to match my bright red tea pot.

I was just thinking the same thing! My towel pig in my new kitchen:

Ott2, that is adorable! Also it adds color to your kitchen.

This is a real interesting thread!!!

I keep my tea-towel and hand towel both on the stove handles. I always remove them when frying something greasy, and if I'm opening the oven door all the way.

No dishwasher, so the tea-towel (dish drying towel) get changed out regularly.

I showed this thread to hubby because of the cleaning cloths post. I buy the bar-mops for cleaning up spills, cat-yak etc. He was quite enamored with the "package if 60 cloths at Costco!" that Sleevendog posted. LOL

My DW has no handle and my stove is too far away to use--plus I don't want my grandson to maybe grab it and pull...

We bought two of the towel bars you can hang over the top of cabinet door and close it--
one for cabinet under the electric cooktop and one for under the sink--
The first two I bought at BBB lasted about a year or so and then one of the bars broke--
I didn't want to have mismatched features so bought two at BBB again which have different style--
the round bar SS I got initially weren't in stock--
new ones are more rectangular--but like the rounded one better--
Looking for example/link I see where they may have rounded ones back in stock
also have hooks which are probably less of design statement
I like fact they are in the open to dry and easy to get to--vs inside a cabinet--
We are in FL and lots of humidity...

Here is a link that might be useful: over cabinet door rod

I bought an iron towel bar for the end of the island to hang a hand towel. The dish towel ends up hanging form the DW handle. I hate seeing towels hanging form handles also, but that is just me.

I have 2 places I use. One is on the side of the upper cabinet next to the sink:

I prefer to use that one, and I make sure that I change it often and that I use primarily the bottom part not touching the cabinet.

DH prefers to drip across the aisle to the one we have on the end of the island (it's really not that far). It's actually a drawer pull:

Wow so many options! Thanks for sharing.

Wilson853, Your idea is intriguing. However, I am not sure I understand your idea fully. Do you happen to have a picture that shows where on the granite you installed the rail system?

For those that have towel bars install on cabinet sides, have you had any issues with damaging the cabinet ends as reported by one poster?

Carol

No problem at all with moisture on the cabinets. I guess the bar is out far enough so the towel doesn't touch the cabinet.

Ott2, you found a fabulous towel pig! He is so cute! And he is doing a fine job of holding your towel. :)

So interesting... all the varying thoughts!

I notice, however, a potential difference of opinion between what may be different 'age ranges'? Perhaps younger GW's are more sensitive to issues they consider being unclean/yucky/germy?

Being in my 70's, I raised kids before disposable diapers, before antimicrobial wet wipes, before special shopping cart liners, before..... My children crawled and played on bare and carpeted floors, often picking up and tasting whatever might have dropped! They played in the yard... in the grass/dirt/even mud. I did not have 3 or 5 different cutting boards to prevent food cross-contamination. I used a sponge to handwash things and to clean the counters... as well as a sticky little hand or mouth in a pinch. An all-purpose towel dried stuff.

In no way do I disparage more current thinking regarding kitchen towel use and storage. Rather, I view these discussions from a long lifetime of personal experience.

And as others comment... no one has died, or suffered food poisoning.

kitykat, exactly! ...I'm in my 60's, and you hit the nail on the head ;)

kitykat and ctycdm, I'm with you guys, both age-wise and approach to germs. In a different thread somewhere on GW, someone said if you need to sneeze you should go into the bathroom. If that were the case, I would never leave the bathroom.

I have a dish towel and a hand towel on the handle of my stove. My dishwasher doesn't have a handle. I would have liked one, but I liked the $500 sale price on the Bosch with no handle better than having a handle. LOL

I imagine my towels have touched the floor once or twice when opening the stove, but to repeat the mantra, no one has died yet! And as my Gramma used to say, You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die.

The dish towel is used for draining dishes on if I have an overflow from the drainer thingy, and the hand towel is for hands. I change the hand towel almost every day. When actively prepping/cooking, it's often on the counter nearby, though the stove is only one or two steps away.

I do like that poor deceased towel pig from the other thread. And Hugo the towel dog with his tongue sticking out.

Here's a photo of the gourmet rail on our old island. Hope that helps.

Thanks wilson853 for the photo. That is a clever solution!

Carol

I was curious about the gourmet rail too. It wasn't apparent from the other link. Thanks.

(Also trying to get the spam to sink).

Saw this yesterday in a kitchen store. It comes with a magnetic sheet, I believe for putting behind an appliance panel that is not magnetic.

Does anyone have problems with stainless steel appliances rusting? I wanted nice handles on my stove, refrigerator and dishwasher to hang dish towels, bit am concerned about rusting.

The point of stainless is that it doesn't rust.

I have installed two towel bars on the end of the island, which is directly behind the kitchen sink. The aisle is only 36" so it's a quick turn and pivot. The top one is for drying hands because it is more convenient, and the bottom one is for drying dishes - although sometimes DH forgets! We use paper towels only for cleaning up raw eggs or meat.

cal_quail, stainless steel does not rust as easily as other metals, but it can rust. I see rust on my stainless DW and sink :) The ovens, fridge, and rangetop are fine, though.

edit: It's surface rust only. I am able to scrub it out of the sink but the (thankfully tiny) bit on the DW stays because I don't want to scratch the finish.

This post was edited by tracie.erin on Wed, Aug 6, 14 at 11:19

doesn't rust spread? I'd want to remove it even if it might scratch the surface.

Here is a link that might be useful: See article re stainless rusting and how to remove it

I installed a cute lightweight decorative hook to the side of a cabinet. Unfortunately I wanted a place for my dustpand/hand broom, so that's what I used the hook for. Towel is in the usual place, the oven door, but I always buy nice, color co-ordinated to kitchen towels since they become almost a part of the decorating.

Same style, but different design.

Here is a link that might be useful: hook

Not sure it's an age divide. I'm in my 50s and I keep two towels handy, 1 for dishes, 1 for hands. I don't like antimicrobial soaps or surfaces but I prefer to avoid cross-contamination.

Lisa, all soap is anti-bacterial. I'm several years beyond my 50s and do not use two different towels, and hey, I'm still alive :-)

sjhockeyfan, I'm talking about soaps and products labeled as antimicrobial/antibacterial because of added chemicals like triclosan. Good ol' soap kills 99% of bacteria without it and doesn't give rise to antibiotic resistant germs.

I keep two towels because I live with 2 men (hubby and DS2) and they will wipe their rinsed but unwashed hands, say after cracking eggs or handling raw meat (yeah, they do that!), on the clean dish towel and then dry a just-washed dish with that same towel. I ask them, "What's the point of washing the dish in the first place if you're going to dry it with a dirty towel?" They just give me a blank look. So I keep two towels around and will continue to do so because it's unlikely they will change their habits.

And yeah, so far none of us has died or suffered food poisoning (that I know of, anyway) but perhaps it's because I am vigilant about the hand towel/dish towel set-up. Because, trust me, if it was up to them, they would keep using the same dish rag day after day after day after day. They also use the wood cutting board and put it away dirty. I recently had to clean it down with hot soap, water and bleach because it was growing mold! They have so many wonderful qualities so I overlook this bad habit of theirs, just as they overlook my bad habits.

This is a different strokes for different folks thing. I don't think it's an age thing. My neighbor, 18 years my junior, is very laid back about germs with her 3 young children.

Thinking about pricklypearcactus' need to keep the towels up higher. I don't think that I would like either a towel ring or a hook on the side of the cabinet. I wonder if something like the Ikea Fintorp rail, with its choice of hooks and baskets, or just the rail itself attached to the bottom of the cab next to the sink would work. (The actual Fintorp rail is too long to put on the side of an upper cab, though)

Kitykat, there is some speculation in the medical world as to whether the late 20th century obsession with germs has led to the rapid uptick in problems caused by over-active immune systems.

I am a product of the 50's. Ma always had a towel for hands and a towel for dishes. So darn it.....so do I!

Our family nickname for her was "Suzy Spotless" and I am so NOT that way, I figure if I maintain the 2 towel system, it's one less reason for her to be spinning in her grave.

Because some days when I'm cutting corners........you know I CAN hear that spinning loud and clear!

I keep one towel for drying dishes, one on the DW handle for drying hands. Like many of you, my DH has no idea why. When I see him use the dish towel for wiping the counter or his hands, I just shrug. And remove it for washing when he's not looking. I don't think men think about things like this. We've had no death or sickness here, in spite of incorrect use of the towels. I'm a 50's baby too, and recall the "eat a peck of dirt before you die" phrase. I'm lucky that I can use the under cab towel bar. I'm now thinking of using an on sale drawer pull on the wall next to the sink. Thanks for the idea!

I should have been clearer.........I respect the towel "rules" but my DH not so much either. Same here - I just roll with it by now.

I have it at the end of the peninsula where it overhangs on the side. It is nice to have it right next to the food prep area and a few steps from the sink. I couldn't bring myself to have holes put into the cabinet side so I had it attached to the wood under the granite.

I also like how it keeps it far enough away from the cabinet that it won't stain the cabinet which I had happen with my previous cabinets.

Oh - I have been asking the same questions for years and not found a good solution. When we redid out kitchen last year we decided to go for laminate (Formica) cabinets that we had custom made for us because we wanted the durability and ability to stand up to dampness. I planned to use large bar-type pulls on the drawers and cabinets and could hang towels wherever I wanted without fear of damaging the cabinets. Unfortunately, the cabinets didn't meet with out approval (a real problem with sight-unseen custom cabinetry) so I'm now using the DW handle (located next to the prep sink). This is fine for wiping clean hands and an wet apple or tomato after washing, but not good for drying dishes over at the clean-up sink - that DW doesn't have a handle. So I leave a towel draped over the dish rack next to the sink. I am mentally designing a towel holder that would sit on the counter or in the dish rack, similar to the ones you can get for hand towels in a bathroom. I don't want it to take up too much space on the counter and I don't want to drip on the counter so this is a challenge. We're redoing our kitchen, again, and will probably end up with wood cabinets. I am thinking about getting some sort of shield for the apron in front of the sink and the sink cabinet door to protect it from water from spills and a towel hanging there. (Now there's an idea for an enterprising inventor!) I might even choose a completely different door for that location, maybe thermafoil or such, and incorporate it into the "design." It's probably going to be my last kitchen and as for my body, I'm too old to worry about appearances. I'm more concerned about function than form!

dgormish - Thanks for the idea. I put a command hook on the cabinet under my overhang, behind my sink, just to see what I thought. It's too low and weird and awkward to be useful because it has to be below the outlet that's there. Maybe I can suspend a hook from the plywood supporting the granite? It would hang in front of the outlet (which I can not imagine I'll use very often so I think that's fine).

ellessebee, I have thought along the same lines. In front of the sink seems like the most convenient location, but I don't want to risk water ruining the wood. I posted a thread recently about the idea of putting a slab of the counter material mounted to the front of the sink apron, with a low profile towel bar or cabinet pull mounted to that to hand the towels on. It would give it a faux farmhouse sink look, but still allow me the undermount double stainless steel sink that I want for practical and budget reasons. The counter material should handle water contact much better than the wood.

Here is a link that might be useful: towels hung on front of faux apron sink

The FINTORP rails from IKEA can be cut down to any length. I have an 11" long one on the side of a wall cabinet next to my sink. It's a handy little rail for a hand drying towel and a bottle of countertop spray. Towels for drying dishes hang from a different FINTORP rail mounted on a wall. The FINTORP hooks seems to keep the towels far enough away from the cabinet and wall that moisture is not really a problem. Plus I use fairly thin towels (flour sack type)