I bought this dish drying mat at The Container Store a while ago. I used to use a dish towel to put clean and wet dishes on, but it slides and sometimes it gets soaked through. Before that we used a wooden dish rack, but it’s such a pain to fold up and put back under the sink, and the underneath of my sink is pretty crowded these days, anyway. So I bought this drying mat.
It’s the Original Dish Drying Mat. Tewtally gen-u-wine.
But because it isn’t a towel, it doesn’t fold up when you want to put it away. So I devised my own system for tucking it away: I hang it on the inside of one of my cabinet doors.
Here’s how to do it!
You’ll need:
- dish mat
- grommet tool, like this one
or this one
- 3/8″ grommets (a few usually come with the tool)
- scissors
- two screw hooks
- hammer and small nail
The grommet tool does pretty much all of this for you. First thing you’ll want to do is punch a hole with the tool where you want your first grommet.
Since this mat has a small layer of foam in the middle, the tool didn’t really cut all the way through, so I had to use scissors to help it along. Once you’ve got your hole cut, you can insert your grommet.
If you’ve never attached a grommet before, the tool’s packaging will give you all the instructions you need. Essentially, you put the male part through one side, put the female part on the other side, position the tool over them and then squeeze.
Once you’ve got the grommet attached, you can fold the mat over to position the second grommet hole.
I used a Sharpie just to mark where I wanted the second grommet so that they’d match. Then I followed the same procedure as the first side.
Now that the mat is ready, you simply need to install the hooks on the inside of the cabinet. To make it easy, hold your mat up and mark the holes so that they match perfectly. Be sure that your mat will hang completely within the perimeter of your door. Use the nail to start a hole and then screw in each hook.
Now you’re ready to hang your mat!
Tucked away nice and neat. Love!
