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How Many Dishes Do You Own (And What Patterns?)

Here's a random question I don't think we've discussed: How many dishes do you own, how often do you buy new sets, and what sets or china patterns do you have?

I've written before about how, in my late 20s, feeling perpetually single, I felt hesitant to upgrade college-era dishes and otherwise “set up house” with things I'd always associated with a wedding. Then, one day while shopping, I saw a tea cup I absolutely loved, and when I looked at the rest of the set it seemed super cool and not that expensive. (It was the Tyler Florence collection from Mikasa.) So I bought a few dishes. My mother, excited to be able to buy me dishes, kept finding pieces on sale, so I wound up with almost all of the pieces in the set.

Now, unfortunately, the set turned out to be prone to cracks and chips, and some of the pieces were incredibly heavy or fragile, so 15+ years later we still have a lot of pieces but barely use some of them. Unfortunately, they take up a lot of space in our cupboards and drawers.

Then, when I did get married, we registered for china (Lenox Westerly) and glassware (Waterford Lismore and Mikasa Cheers), and again, we bought all the pieces. I really thought I'd be throwing eight-person dinner parties often, I suppose? (In fact, longtime readers will remember that in the very beginning, Weekend Open Threads featured china or glasses, as if we were all sitting down for a cup of coffee or a cocktail together.)

For flatware, I'd bought one set of an Oneida pattern I thought was called Demeter at Century 21 (RIP), but I now see a full set for sale on Amazon under the name “Diameter” and I'm so tempted!! Years later, I also saw a really unusual set of blue stainless steel from Gorham for around $60 per set (down from $200) and wound up buying eight sets over the course of a few years / gifts from my mother.)

{related: do you throw dinner parties?}

Of course we don't use the china that often, although thankfully it is dishwasher safe. Then, when my boys were toddlers, I bought a lot of very-hard-to-break dishes from Corelle (divided plates! 9″ plates! that I use more than full-size dinner plates! mugs! huge bowls that are great for soup and popcorn!) and those are the ones that we primarily use.

So over the years I've seen some beautiful plates or pieces, but I really hesitate to buy them because we don't have the cabinet room for more than a few pieces at a time. (Especially since I've been getting more into estate sales… sometimes you can find an entire set with like 80 pieces for less than $50!) At this point, I won't even buy cocktail glasses if they come in sets of four, because we just don't need more than two.

(And of course, meanwhile, my mother is trying to remind me of all of the various china sets she'll pass down to me from her collections and both of my grandmothers, as well as my mother-in-law and my aunt.)

I obviously have a lot of opinions on this, and I'd love to hear yours — what was your dish situation in the post-college years? If you have a formal “set” or china pattern, what is it? For those of you who are a bit older, how often do you get rid of older sets (or relegate them to storage, like the basement) and buy new sets?

Stock photo via Stencil.

53 Comments

  1. I used a relative’s “fine but was bored with it” dishes until I got married. Registered for just one Wedgwood white set, which we are still loving 15 years later. Having a very neutral set has been great. It can be dressed up or down, goes with any season, and it’s easy to buy a few small accent plates to mix in when you want to be festive, without having to store an entire set of Christmas China.

  2. OMG this is one of my weaknesses! This is what we have:

    My wedding china from first marriage for 12
    Hubby’s wedding china from first marriage for 10
    My mom’s wedding china for 10
    Set of European china I bought at an antique store during my first marriage for 12
    Everyday white Fiestaware for 16
    Set of black Joanna Gaines-for-Target stoneware for 12 (if you don’t have black dishes, you’re missing out)
    Pottery Barn white dinner plates for 4
    Pottery Barn greenish Asianish square dinner plates for 4 with matching bowls
    6 Fiestaware plates in assorted colors with various Loony Toons characters on them
    4 red enamel dinner plates
    Set of 10 decorative dessert plates we bought in Italy and had shipped home
    Pottery Barn small square plain white hors d’oeuvres plates for 12

    We entertain a lot and we also like to mix up different plates at mealtime for the two of us. E.g. light food on black plates, breakfast on cartoon plates, etc. And yes, we’re insane. We have a lot of storage space so it’s all reasonably accessible so we use it and enjoy it. And every single bit of it goes in the dishwasher.

    For flatware, we have stainless for 16, plus my first-wedding sterling silver for 12, Hubby’s first-wedding silver plate for 12, and my mom’s wedding sterling for 10. We use the stainless for everyday but bust out the silver for parties.

    (Don’t get me started on all the drinking vessels…)

      1. If I could afford it and have the space… inuding at a dining room table, this would be my dream!

        I love my Lenox Blue Frost China wedding set.
        I have a set from both grandparents, so now we’re at 3 China sets.
        1 set silver flatware
        1 set every day flatware
        Going through the every day dishes but parents gave me their handmedown every day dishes so with 3 boys we’re going through those too.

        Still not enough *serving* ware we end up eating out of the pot which would have mortified the ancestors oh well

        Need some glassware!

      1. Yes! I find I don’t have to shine them as much either. My mom also puts her silver through the dishwasher. I use ours as our everyday flatware. I’m team use the nice stuff.

    6. Similarly, my weakness. I have so many dishes I’ve lost count. I buy them at antique stores and have every variety from classic to modern. Same with flatware and glassware. Entertain a ton, love setting a table, toss it all in the dishwasher and am precious with none of it save for my favorite tea cup. We use the good stuff all the time. The only category I don’t have is “everyday” because I do t understand why you wouldn’t want to eat off of a pretty plate for every single meal.

    7. I love this! I aspire to be you :)

      I have:
      – White scallopped Corelle, assorted pieces from post-college years – we use these every day for meals.
      – Noritake Chintz – salad plates, bread plates, dessert bowls, sets of 8 to 12. We use these for breakfast and dessert, and parties.
      – A fancy Limoges set for 8 – we use this for dinner parties.

      I’d love to get:
      – A fancier set of everyday dishes in white
      – A more “rustic” set for outdoor/casual dining
      – An “old lady” floral set for when I feel like feeling fancy :)
      – More serving platters to go with the Limoges

      But first, we have to improve our storage situation. Right now I have no room for additional dishes.

  3. We have a lot (but not as much as Senior Attorney!). Kosher rules mean that we have double what a normal kitchen might require: Everyday dairy set (casual Pfaltzgraff service for 12), everyday meat set (Mikasa durable “china” service for 14), formal Wedgewood china (service for 14). All of those sets were gifted from our wedding registry in 2000.

    Melamine plates for outdoor use (about 20 dessert plates). Dessert plates (glass, about 10–purchased second hand).
    I can imagine that at some point in 10 years I’ll hand the Pfaltzgraff down to a child when they need stuff for their first kitchen, and I’ll get something new.
    (By the way, I haven’t touched on the Passover dishes that get used only one week a year at most: meat china, dairy china, silver, etc.)

  4. I love dishes too, but my husband is a minimalist. I had an antique set of bone china (very pretty turn of the century complete with soup tureens, dessert bowls, etc, ) that I thought we would use, and kept for many years. We don’t entertain that often, and the set had very heavy gold leaf on the tureen handles, and plates, so we avoided using it, except for the bowls for salad. Eventually, I sold the set…it was not easy, bit now we use some modern crate and barrel bowls, and some lovely painted Japanese china. We need to buy more plates and dishes, but are taking our time. My husband actually likes looking and purchasing interesting dishes and porcelain, but as he dislikes clutter, we have become very dish selective:). We never registered for wedding china, because I had the antique set at the time we got married, and because we lived in a smaller space. I do have some hand painted teacups still— and I’m searching for some plain bowls and plates, as well as some really decorative plates and bowls as accents.

  5. Sorry I meant silver flatware (not silverplate) in the dishwasher? will it ruin the flatware? would it pit or discolor do you think? Thanks!

    1. You can put silver flatware in the dishwasher but make sure it only touches other silver. No silver against stainless.

      1. You can put silver flatware in the dishwasher but make sure it only touches other silver. No silver against stainless.

    2. I do! It tarnishes and you can get it polished but I’d rather use it. It horrifies some people, so get those pearls out to clutch!

  6. I like dishes.
    -Paternal grandmother’s china
    -Maternal grandmother’s china
    -Mother’s best china
    -Mother’s second best china
    -an antique chocolate set of painted porcelain that belonged to my grandmother. Perhaps my favorite. Pot, cups and saucers, small plates, small bowls, platters and serving bowls.
    -Pottery Barn Iznik pattern everyday stuff
    -White pottery with stylized blue flowers double set I bought in 1987 and still use almost daily
    -blue and white tinware set
    -fruit patterned tinware set that my mother bought at a dime store when she was pregnant with me
    -William Morris tinware plates I bought last year because it’s William Morris pattern
    -some square-ish plain white plates and bowls and serving dishes I got at Walmart that are very clean and modern looking.
    -clear glass plate, bowl, dessert plate
    and salad plate settings for 80. When my brother was getting married the first time it cost less to buy settings than rent them. Mother got 40, I got 40, now I have 80. Still use some of these when I want my table linens to shine through.
    -I am also peculiarly fond of table linens.

    I don’t know what the living hell I am going to do with all this when I downsize to 790 square feet. I have used all of this in the past 12 months. Used the chocolate set last Sunday as a tea set.

    2. What are your best sources for tablecloths? I also love both dishes and table linens, but need to replace a few tablecloths and have found anything I liked recently.

      1. White damask and the like I inherited. Likewise some really awesome vintage square colorful tablecloths that I think were meant for card tables. I throw them catty-cornered in the center of the big table on top of either bare wood or a full size table cloth.

        Bought ones come from Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Saffron Marigold, Ten Thousand Villages, and run-of-the-mill antique stores. Much like silver, china, and antique furniture, not many people seem to be interested in old linens and sometimes I find a really good deal. In a small town where I go to court once a week there is a “Ladies Handicrafts” store that is open infrequently but when it is I browse the handmade and vintage linens there and have made some real finds.

  7. I love dishes, but I’ve consciously tried to restrain myself (first because I had to fit everything into a 600sqft apartment, now I have more space but there’s still only 2 of us with no plans for kids).

    Right now I have:
    – For our wedding I registered for 12 place settings of Caskata Bloom small/large plates + wide shallow bowls. These are gorgeous and dishwasher safe, and I think blue & white is equally classic as plain white while being more interesting for someone who prefers color to neutrals. I love how lightweight porcelain is compared to the inexpensive ceramic dinnerware I was using previously.
    – Assorted collection of mix-and-match large ceramic cereal bowls, which I’ve slowly collected over the years from Anthropologie and independent ceramic artists. The handmade OOAK ones cost $35-75 each, which makes them more expensive than my wedding china lol.
    – Way too many mugs that I’ve similarly collected. We are not regular coffee or tea drinkers, so the mugs are rarely used, but I love looking at them and they’re useful when company comes over.
    – A small selection of inherited pieces from my MIL; we left the majority for other family members to go through or to donate. Fun little things like depression glass and tiny Japanese bowls.
    – Plus a large collection of various glassware, both purchased and inherited — we do like to keep a home bar, although I’ve limited myself to 4 each of the more recent cocktail glass acquisitions. I’m picky about my glassware, they have to both look good and feel good, but I still have way more than I need.

    I forced my husband to let me donate our old Ikea and World Market plates after we got the wedding china. Otherwise it’s just too tempting to “save” the nice stuff! I love using my Caskata pieces and they’ve been just as sturdy while feeling light and luxe. (We’re not hard on our stuff though as two neat-tending adults with no kids.)

  8. This is also one of my weaknesses. I live in an old house with a built in China cabinet plus a butlers pantry between the kitchen and dining room, so I have kind of a lot.

    I have everyday dishes – Corelle bella faenza plus a few basic corelle white pieces (deep cereal bowls, serving bowls) that I bought to replace the Johnson Brothers iron ware (Heritage White) I’d been using since my first marriage in 1986 (!) as it was discontinued and getting hard to replace. I kept up with the replacements for a while but it’s expensive, so it’s been a relief to have cheap and easily replaceable every day stuff, especially as my kids aren’t any more careful now as college students than they were as toddlers. I still have enough of the Heritage to serve 6 or so, with all of the serving pieces, so if we have a nicer family dinner or just a couple of people over, I use that.

    I have two sets of china. The most sentimental to me is a set my mom collected at the grocery store with stamps when I was a baby, and she always intended to pass it down to me. At the time it was the nicest thing she owned, so we are very careful with it. She regretted never being able to collect enough stamps to buy the matching serving pieces so I bought those from eBay when I was older. It made her very happy. We use these for Thanksgiving, my birthday, and Easter, mostly.

    When my kids were little my sister started giving me a few pieces of Spode Christmas tree for gifts, so I kept my eyes open and found an entire set on Craigslist for a very good deal. It turns out my Craigslist set was the old style made in England, so it I wanted to sell it off one piece at a time, I suppose I could make a few bucks. But I don’t want to. We pull these dishes out every year the day after Thanksgiving, swap them for our everyday dishes, and use them the entire holiday season until New Year’s Day.

    I’ve tried to keep a full service for 12 of the Spode, because my kids like the tradition so much I suspect they will each want their own when they have families, and I can just split it between them.

    But who knows. I know you can get entire China sets very cheaply secondhand now, as apparently Millenials don’t want them, so we’ll see if my Gen Z kids are ever interested at all. Maybe they’ll all go into the landfill when I’m gone?

    1. I am certain all this is going in the landfill when I’m gone, and I guess I’m okay with that. Presumably my son will have the wherewithal to sell the sterling for the metal value.

    2. My friend gave me her mother’s China set as it matched the colors of my house. When I redecorated, I put them for free in my neighborhood FB group and a new mother was thrilled to get the set. There is always someone who will appreciate China! Just maybe not our children.

  9. I mix and match and buy things in white and blue, so I can buy fun polish or Portuguese pottery and it all goes without being matchy matchy or a crisis if something breaks. Our big set is Denby imperial blue but I like fun pasta bowls and small plates from TJ maxx.

  10. Where could I donate a set of commemorative Confederate china that was handed down from Southern relatives? It’s in poor taste and should not be used. I would like to donate it to an organization that would showcase it appropriately (meaning not as something good). We have not been able to find a museum or organization that wants it. I think it has First Lady Wilson’s signature on the back.

    2. Ferris State University in Michigan has a Jim Crow museum; they might want them.

    3. American Civil War Museum accepts donations of artifacts, and they might be interested. They have a White House of the Confederacy location.

      Virginia Museum of History and Culture – they list an email address, might be worth a question.

      Otherwise, just for the bad juju, I’d junk it. (Who is First Lady Wilson? Wasn’t Jefferson Davis’s wife the first lady?)

  11. Ooh, I love this question. I just got married about a month ago, and my Grandma was DETERMINED to buy us a complete 12-person set of wedding china (Villeroy & Boch Anmut, which is simple, plain, beautiful and dishwasher safe – and btw their customer service is truly extraordinary). We have that, and love it, and we’re still in the phase where every time we pull it out we get excited about how it will be used over the course of our marriage (Christmas dinner for our grandchildren?!). Whenever we have someone over for a meal indoors, the wedding china comes out. They don’t really fit well in our current, tiny dishwasher, though, so we generally use a set of those $.79 glass plates from Ikea (dinner, salad, and pasta bowls), a couple of large Corelle cereal bowls, and two truly enormous ramen bowls from Crate & Barrel. The ramen bowls are a special case, but we try to avoid dishware and silverware that can’t be tossed into the dishwasher.
    I’ve always got an eye out for fun dishware, though – blue and white pieces, Christmas, autumn/halloween… We picked plain china so that we could mix and match and bring in colors, patterns, and textures with mixed pieces. My favorite is a set of 4 blue and white salad plates. And when October rolls around, my pumpkin-shaped and dia de los muertos dessert plates come out for everyday use.

  12. I really like this thread! I’ve wondered about getting china that also works for everyday. Does such a thing exist? I have two sets of fine china from my husband’s grandmother and mother. I once used a set for everyday until a family friend broke a plate and spent $25 to replace it. Does durable, dishwasher safe, fine china exist? I will probably inherit some gold leaf plated plates from my mom when they decide to leave their house for something smaller.

    1. Buy extras to start and just use it! You rarely need exactly the full set anyway. I’m team all fine china is everyday china.

    2. Right? You’d spend $25 for lunch so if you break a plate here and there it’s not the end of the world!

  13. So at first I thought multiple sets was excessive, then I actually thought about what I have. Daily dishes are navy blue from IKEA (I think service for 18?) and my winter/Christmas dishes from Lenox (set of 8) coordinate with those, which is nice. Then I have a small set (4 or 6?) of my parents’ wedding dishes (I believe they were a grocery store purchase :)) and we kept a 4 place set from my husband’s parents. And then I have a 4 piece setting of some Rachael Ray owl dishes that are still boxed up. Loved them and so they were purchased as a backup, but the paint rubbed off so we replaced them.

  14. I collect green depressionware that is beautiful for Christmas dinner mixed with the classic Lenox Christmas pattern. For everyday, we use Fiestaware in mix and match colors. I don’t cook or really entertain but love a beautiful tablescape.

  15. Plain white everyday
    White with a platinum band wedding china (hello, mid-00’s bride!)
    White with rust and gold bands that I use for Thanksgiving (inherited)
    Antique cut glass plates that I use for holiday parties (inherited)
    Blue and white melamine for summer picnics

    Coming my way: bone with avocado flowers and a platinum band (thanks, ’70s bride mom! ha)

  16. We have one set of dishes– all white, from CB2. Post-college, I used my (divorced) parents’ wedding china as my everyday stuff (white with platinum band– very simple and lovely.). When DH and I got married we registered for basic white Pottery Barn stuff which replaced the old china set. And during early COVID, after 15+ years of heavy usage, I decided I Could Not Look at those dishes any longer and bought the CB2 stuff.

    And we have a bunch of various-sized bowls (I have a weakness for bowls, for whatever reason), also unpatterned white, so they can be mixed in as needed.

    I have no desire to own multiple sets of dishes.

  17. I’ve downsized a lot of dishes over the years. Currently, we have two sets of Corelle for “every day”; I originally had a pattern that I liked, but it was no longer available when I acquired a husband and 3 stepkids, so we bought a complementary pattern. There’s also a set of 4 antique blue dessert plates from my great grandma, mixed and matched with 4 blue star wars plates. Then there’s an (8 or 12) person setting plus extras of Taihei Springtime china. It was my mom’s wedding china, and when she downsized, she decided to give half to each kid. Since I entertained a lot and thought it was so pretty, I scavenged estate sales and the like for a few years to add to the set until it was more the sufficient for holidays, parties, etc. There’s been some breakage over the years, and replacements have slowly been harder to come by, but we use them for any remotely “special” occasion (good grades? new recipe? bonus? all special occasions).

  18. We don’t entertain, so have no need for dish sets, never mind several.
    We do own an early 1900s Limoges set but it never gets used. (and honestly the only reason we still own it because no one is buying antiques in this economy)
    We just have several mix-and-match plates, bowls, and mugs that get used all the time, and since we’re a small family of 3 it equals out to being just a service for 4, along with some extra fun coffee mugs we like using.
    I admit I love dish sets, though, so if we did ever have a reason to own actual full sets, I would probably own more than one.

  19. I have two sets of 1920s china, one more spring like that I use for every day and the other more formal for, well, formal occasions. They’re both complete with extra serving dishes (tea sets, tureens, etc.). Found the extra pieces on eBay, the original sets at estate sales. My silver plate is a complete set for eight, also primarily from an estate sale with unusual extras from eBay (tomato server anyone?). My day to day silver plate is from my late ex, pretty incomplete but old school English style. My everyday serving dishes are mostly hand-made from my college town. I remember the story behind every piece.

    I bet SA’s moving/downsizing/future estate sale will be epic!

  20. I just want to shoutout to the South Asian children of immigrants who grew up with Corning/Corelle everything, and how it really meant that you were doing the dang thing in America when those dishes made it to the house.

    I love the dishes my parents and extended family have, especially my parents collection of various crockery/baking stuff.

    1. + 1. South Asian immigrant here. Laughing out loud at this comment. We were gifted two identical corelle sets ( by an older South Asian immigrant family) when we first moved to the states a couple of decades back. Sadly the corelle still rules– can’t argue with its utilitarian efficiency. I never developed a taste for fine China in the US, but will happily drool over Japanese stoneware. Someday, when I have more space….

    2. Yes! South Asian woman here and my mom still lovingly uses the Corelle dinnerwear that was purchased in the mid 70’s!!!

  21. I love china. My main set is Wedgwood Wild Strawberry, which I first started collecting in 1986. I have all the serving pieces and probably service for 10. It is dishwasher safe and I use it when the kids come home. It’s great for spring, summer and Easter. I always worried it wasn’t versatile for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years. However, for Thanksgiving I pick up the gold and rust tones of the foliage and deep green/brown with leaves, gourds, pomegranates and persimmons. For Christmas and New Years, I bought Wedgwood Renaissance Red salad plates, which has a deep red band. Since both are Wedgwood, they look like they belong together. I put them on top of the dinner plates and the table looks very green and red and gold festive. I also use them for desert.

    I have Mikasa Trellis bone china for everyday. Got most at Costco, some at HomeGoods. I lust for Wedgwood Wild Strawberry White, which is plain white with raised decorations but have not pulled the trigger.

    I inherited casual Christmas china from my MIL, but pieces are slowly cracking and I think it was a Hallmark set, so no replacements.

    For silver, I have my grandmother-in-law’s 1925 sterling, which – ironically – is called Wedgwood by International Sterling. It is pictured in this photo (link to follow) with my Wild Strawberry. Like the woman who wrote this blog, I too worked in the china department as a college student. The sterling will go to one of my kids or my husband’s niece at some point when I downsize.

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