I think there is a lot of value in handmade items. Handmade items give you the opportunity to experience feeling good when you make them, and to learn how to do things that you can’t do with store-bought items.

The biggest benefit is the attention you pay. In my case, I get a little thrill every time I spend an hour making something I intend to keep for a long time. It’s also fun to solve problems, or meet your own expectations by making something that turns out well.

The other big benefit is that store bought items are often designed poorly. To make them work well, you have to cut out parts or put them together in ways they weren’t intended for. This can be frustrating, and it’s hard to know what to do about it without knowing what was in the designer’s mind when he or she made the item. A piece of cloth is harder to improve than a pair of shoes: over time it will get worn out, but there’s usually not much point in trying to “dress up” an old pair of shoes.

There are a lot of reasons to make things yourself: you know what you’re buying, you can fit multiple uses into a single item, you’ll be using it for years, and you can customize it by hand. And the only reason to buy things in other places is to save time, because you know what’s in them and how they were made.

The basic point is this: handmade items make life more enjoyable.

You may be surprised to know that I have never used a dishwasher. I have never owned one and I have never used one in my own home.

I can’t say for sure exactly when I started avoiding dishwashers but the first time I saw one was in an airbnb. The host had just bought a new dishwasher and was showing it off, but I found myself searching for the words “hand washed” on the appliance tag.

In the months following this experience, I noticed dishwashers becoming more prevalent in my own home, so much so that eventually someone gifted me a new one for Christmas. The dishes still didn’t get washed by hand and now they are sitting in some kind of box-like contraption collecting dust (I don’t know why we don’t use our dishwashers anymore!) but I knew that using a dishwasher would be like using those pots and pans where you put everything in separately instead of mixing them together by hand.

I may or may not have been wrong but what really made me realize how impractical hand washing is is probably when I was traveling and had to wash out a few items in the sink using soap and cold water instead of hot water because it was not possible to get hot water at the hotel.

From the moment I laid eyes on the built in dishwasher, I knew it was going to be a major hassle. I know that sounds weird coming from someone who is now so preoccupied with making his own soap and handcrafted paper towels that he can’t even get his newspaper delivered without help, but I love dishes.

My mother and grandmother have been my best friends. When they weren’t busy being mothers and grandmothers they were making things: quilts, clothes, cookbooks, tea towels and homemade fabric softener. They both used an old fashioned washboard and would hand wash every single item of clothing.

I don’t care how clean the dishwasher is as long as you don’t have to touch anything or put your hands in it. The built-in dishwasher has a plastic rack that holds 6 place settings for 6 people at a time. It has two racks for storage and one rack below for drying silverware. The racks are not adjustable. There is no way to clean the racks without getting down on your hands and knees and removing every single plate, bowl, glass, mug and pot you’ve ever owned from their cabinets and shelves to make room for them in the two storage compartments below.

To load the dishwasher you need to

The problem with handcrafted things is that they’re not mass produced. They’re expensive, and if you make them by hand, it takes time. The more time it takes, the more money it costs.

That’s what has happened to books, to clothing, to furniture, to all kinds of stuff. Craftsmen-craftswomen used to be a class in and of themselves; they made things that were beautiful and useful by hand. But now craftsmen are all being replaced by machines, and the only reason we still have books printed on handmade paper and clothing made from cloth is because those craftsmen don’t exist anymore.

It is hard to know exactly what the impact of the Internet on consumption has been. But one thing is sure: online purchases are not like buying at a store. They are more like visiting a museum, or reading a book, or sitting in front of a fireplace. You want to stop, check it out, and appreciate it fully.

Online purchases are like taking a second look at an object you have long ago bought. That second look often reveals something new and unexpected, which leads to delight and surprise.

That is how I feel about my handcrafted dishes. Sometimes I discover that some detail I didn’t notice before adds to the charm of the dish and makes it more authentic for me than the mass-produced version**.

Until a few years ago, it was always hard to find dishwashers that didn’t take up half the kitchen. You had to choose between space and convenience, or space and easy cleaning. Many owners were compelled to choose convenience, and got a machine that filled their whole kitchen with water and soap dispensers. But when they opened their eyes in the morning they found themselves staring into a half-full sink.

The choice is less clear today: more machines have gotten more compact, so you can put them anywhere you want. A new generation of machines uses just a fraction of what used to fill the sink. More models have been introduced that are really dishwashing machines for small areas; the brand I’m using does this almost entirely automatically by putting tiny holes on the bottom of your dishes.

I bought my machine without knowing anything about its functions or even how it worked—only that I needed something that would wash my dishes at night and in the morning, without taking up lots of room in my kitchen, but without making me do all the work. I didn’t know how much time it would take or how complicated it would be to use; only that it had to do what I wanted, and not do what I didn’t want.