Is more an one dishwasher the secret of domestic bliss?

That’s the new status symbol. And the best part? You’ll never have to put your crockery back in the cupboards!

THrEE years ago, when we looked around our lovely old house in the middle of the Somerset countryside, I admit I scoffed when I noticed it boasted no fewer than three dishwashers. Who needed such an extravagance, I thought. Exactly how many dinner parties could one throw? Surely — like a double garage or an iceberg basement — this was just another way to show off.

Nowadays, I am eating my words. I wonder how I coped without my trio of dishwashers, such is the domestic harmony they’ve created in our family.

For aside from the three meals cooked and consumed each day, my children, Archie, 11, ten-year-old oscar and Lara, seven, seem to be permanently snacking and leaving mountains of dirty plates in their wake. With back-up dishwashers, there’s always somewhere they can be stashed out of sight and smell.

Also, if you time it right, with three dishwashers — two in a stacking set of drawers from Fisher & Paykel (A two-drawer set costs around £800 to £1,250 in shops) and another normal one built into the utility room counter — you never need to bother yourself with unloading the things. You just take clean crockery from one, and stack dirty stuff in one of the others. And, yes, when we have dinner parties I do have a sense of smugness if I ask helpful guests to take the dishes ‘through to the other dishwasher’.

on a couple of occasions, people have expressed surprise. I’d like to think they were impressed.

Now I read that my dishwasher quota is a little on the short side. Marina Fogle, wife of explorer Ben Fogle, this week told a glossy magazine she has a whopping four. Matt Prall, managing director of kitchen design company Papilio, which fits kitchens costing up to £ 100,000, says the multiple dishwasher trend has filtered down from the super-rich to become a near- standard desire among the middle-class.

After speaking to Marina and other dishwasher ‘multiples’, I’m wondering whether we might be able to fit another one in. Having read the women’s stories below, you may find yourself doing the same.