Pat, I need to come visit you and stock up! I use those bar mops for everything. My non-use of paper towels is for two reasons. The first is to save money, I do laundry anyway so I just toss them in with the whites, so I don't use any more water or gas for the dryer, etc. The second reason is because we now have free recycling, so I cancelled my garbage service. Oh wait, that saves money too, LOL, about $30 a month. However, I have to take everything to the recyling center myself, there's no curbside service. So, the more I use in paper products the more I have to haul to recycling or find a way to dispose of. Dave has a big commercial sized dumpster because of the business, so anything I can't recycle or compost goes there, but I have to haul it. The less garbage I have to haul in the Jeep, the better I like it, LOL. As for paper napkins, I've NEVER liked paper napkins unless I'm eating something really messy like ribs. I like cloth napkins and have a basket that sits on the end of my counter. Those just go in the laundry too. Annie

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!

Hi guys! I am shopping for new bathroom towels and kitchen washcloths and I came across these thread from 8 years ago. I can be of help. Long story short, bathroom towels and anything for the bathroom has the ever present band of decorative pattern that runs across the cloth towards each or one end of the towel/washcloth. Those used for the kitchen (or shop/work towels) does not have that band of decorative pattern. It's just a plain, flat canvas of woven terry and double sewn on the four ends of the cloth. They can also be found in the Kitchen section area were as the bathroom towels and such are displayed in the bathroom section. The garden and tools section also sells a different kind of washcloths different from the bath and kitchen. I just figured these out lately too. Hope it helps! ♥

Kitchen towels are only in white and therefore you don't have to worry about anything matching or needing to bleach anything or using the "wrong" towel for anything. They're all the same. I buy cheap 100% cotton terry Doctor Joe automobile polishing towels and use them in the kitchen and garage. Once they get a bit stained from kitchen use, they become garage towels. If you buy in bulk cheaply and have plenty on hand, you won't be searching for one when you need it. Group some by the sink, and others by the prep area and yet others in the laundry area. Yes, I use them for cleaning up cat puke. The yuck goes down the toilet and the towel goes in the laundry with bleach. About 2 dozen is a good starting number for the average household. If you have a large household, then maybe double that. I use an old bucket that cat litter came in as the "hamper" in the pantry. If I'm doing a project that requires a lot of them and they're too many to just drape over the side and air out behind closed doors, I usually put them on a baking sheet and place them in the oven as it's cooling down. Use that "lost heat" for something! Do you want to talk about bottled water? We switched to a filter pitcher several years ago and bought a case of bottled water annually and just refilled the bottles as we drank the original water. But they were difficult to sanitize properly and after a recent bout with a nasty GI bug that the other half blamed on a water bottle, I received a dozen plain stainless steel water bottles as a holiday present. So far, they've been a lot easier to clean and fill and I'm really glad we switched.