Soap dish from kitchen skimmer

Materials: Ikea (name?) kitchen skimmer

Description: We have 2 round vessel sinks in our master bath. Small Ikea bowls mimicking the shape of the vessels held our soaps next to the sinks. Every time we reached with wet hands for the soap or return it to the dish, soapy water splashed on the counter, very messy.

What we needed was an in-sink soap dish!

We looked at Ikea's Lillangen line of bathroom furniture but none of their in-sink accessories would fit our rounded vessel sinks.

While browsing Ikea's kitchen accessories, I came upon a kitchen skimmer that immediately presented a solution. The handle was thick and flat stainless steel, and being a skimmer the device had the requisite openings for the soap to drain excess water. (The newer versions available now have round holes instead of slits)

With a metal saw I cut off the handle to a workable length and smoothed the sharp ends with a sanding tool.

I inserted the remainder of the skimmer into a vice, and carefully bent the handle over a wooden dowel with a diameter approximately the width of the top of the vessel walls. I lined the inside of the bent handles with foam tape, so as not to scratch the porcelain sink, and voila: In-sink soap dishes.

~ Pippa, Chicago area

Updated 7 March 2012
Here's an photo from the side!