We’re working on the kitchen over here… very slowly. I have a kitchen list of 8 things to do, and dishes is #1.
I had no idea buying dishes was going to be such a feat. There are so. many. choices. We had a gift certificate to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. So, at the very least, we knew where we were buying these suckers.
Our current dishes are a hodge podge of randomness. The plates are dollar section Target finds from my college days plus fancy plastic plates with polka dots and hula girls, also from Target. The bowls and mugs are leftover from a mosaic table craft project I did with my mom for my first college apartment.
What we wanted from our dinnerware:
- Casual, simple, plain white, no pattern dishes. Easy to replace if one is broken or chipped. Patterns get discontinued and white goes with everything.
- Dishwasher, microwave and oven safe. No brainer.
- How the bowls stack. I’m not a fan of our current bowl stacking situation. See them up there? They don’t sit nicely in one another.
- Bowl shape. We want a nice deep bowl for cereal and milk. This proved to be harder to find than we thought!
- The shape of the dinner plate. We want to avoid plates that tip easily when cutting on them. Have you ever eaten off of a plate like that?
- Durability.
- Price. We want to eat on these suckers everyday and not worry if 1 or 5 plates break.
There are lots of dinnerware material options and it’s confusing. I wanted to know exactly what I was buying. The terms ceramic and pottery were confusing me. From what I understand, ceramic is a more generic term, it just means made of clay and hardened by heat. Pottery is a more specific kind of ceramic.
According to lots of articles online, melamine is not safest choice for eating from. We decided to stay clear of melamine. Good Housekeeping had great tings to say about Corelle’s break resistant dinnerware, and gave them an A. I was not a fan of the patterns of Corelle at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Remember, we wanted white, simple, sturdy and durable. For us, it seemed like stoneware, earthware, or fiestaware were the best bets. Fiestaware was out because our Bed Bath and Beyond did not sale it in the store and I don’t think it comes in white, we only saw ivory. We walked around the dish section touching and feeling all of the plates and bowls. First, we looked to see it it came in white, then we checked out the plate and bowl shape, and of course considered price.
but, the bowls did pass the stack test. We we’re moving on…
Next we had the Gibson Elite Paradiso set.
Everything looked good minus the plate shape. It’s the kind of plate that will wobble when you cut on it with a fork and knife. Check out the side view… We need low profile plates over here. So the Gibson set was out…
Next, we checked out this studio set. The plate scared us again. We really don’t want wobbly plates.
I really liked this set by Loft and it was on sale too. Still $179 for a 16 piece set, but it looked so pretty. Also, Andy was not impressed with the bowl shape or the price. We moved on.
and check out the nice, neat stack comparison of old vs. new bowls.
- Research and buy new dishes (I had no idea there were so many kinds… stone ware, fiesta ware, Corelle, porcelain, bone ware!)
- Container for bag spices in the large food cabinet
- Container for Tassimo pods to clear out the bottom shelf of the small food cabinet
- A home for pot holders and kitchen towels (I bought a $5 door at Habitat Re-Store!)
- Deal with the random stuff on top of the cabinets
- Get rid of/ organize random stuff next to dresser
- Clean out and organize the dresser
- Buy and mount a paper towel holder
Comments & Reviews
We have a set of Corelle plates. We’ve had it for several months and we use it everyday. We have lots of plates but Corelle is our favorite. It’s light, shiny and easy to wash.
Great post! I really the simplicity of the all white dinner ware. I have been wanting to change to all white for years and my husband finally broke down and bought me 8 place settings in white and I just love it!
I’m a fiesta girl all the way 🙂 Love the colors!
Thanks for a good article – very interesting and helpful, as I am looking to replace my plates. I have open cupboards, so I have to think about stack-ablility, shelf size, etc. I also want a color to match my kitchen, so that is of concern as well. I do know what you mean about wobbly plates. We had gotten some blue plastic “bubble” plates for the kids, but they would turn over and spill, every time we tried to use them. I waited till the kids were at school and threw them in the trash.
I came up with some great options for organizing my spices (I have SO MANY). I love to cook with herbs, but had to find a way to organize them. If you want a photo, let me know. Everyone comments on how organized it looks. Once I got used to my system, it made cooking go so much quicker and easier.
Thanks again!
Thank you for writing this!!! I’m in the same boat, but I haven’t decided what to get yet…although I’m thinking along the same lines as you. 🙂
After buying my stoneware there is 1 thing you did not consider & I hope it did not end up being an issue for you. The size of the plates fitting in the dishwasher…never even thought that they would make everyday dishes that would bang the top rack when slid into the standard dishwasher. Upon investigating later it seems many stoneware dishes are large & will hit the top rack unless angled. 🙁 Ohh well putting them at a slant works in the end as I love my dishes but wish they made nice stoneware about 1/2 smaller.
I have 12 place settings of the all white Corelle.
I like them because they're lighter than stoneware.
I do have concerns about the tipsiness of the plates but the bowls hold a pint each and do fit together very nicely.
I have Corelle-white with blue trim. I have the complete service for 8. So far, one serving bowl broke when I dropped it and they immediately replaced it with no hassle. One plate broke because I had just moved into a new house and hadn't quite mastered the electric stove. I accidentally sat a plate on a burner that I thought was off, and it exploded! Certainly not the fault of the dishes and I didn't ask for replacement. Anyone that dumb deserves to be one plate short! 😉 Oh, these were a wedding gift from my grandmother—-33 years ago. I have other dishes but I only use them on special occasions. These are my daily use dishes.
Thanks! I was hesitant to write about dishes… seemed boring 🙂 I hope you like your dishes!!
It is nice to know what you want 🙂 It makes shopping for somehting a little easier (or harder!) Your dishes sounds beautiful!
Love the new dishes. I kinda wish I'd gone with simpler ones when we registered… but I think almost everyone would change the way they registered looking back.
Good luck on your hunt 🙂 They're are SO many choices… you'll find somehting just right for you!
Andy is SUPER picky about cereal bowls 🙂 Silly boys. So far, there are no scratches on our dishes, but I'll do an update after a few good months of use! Good luck dish shopping and moving to another continent!
Really interesting post! I've never thought about plate profile before, but I love the ones you went with. Totally changed my perspective and left me judging my plates a bit over here.
I love how you set out your needs/wants before you shop. I work in a large furniture and homeware store in the UK, and people just walk in, grab the first box they see and go – I always wonder if they think they made the right decision.
My dishes are all a specific Polish stoneware, called Boloeslaweic, names for the village in which it's all made. It's a mad mix of patterns, mainly in blue on a white background, and we have a plain white set that we use with it. Only problem is the price, so we get a couple of pieces every time we see them on offer, or on ebay!
Thank you for the great post! It appealed to me because I'll be buying a whole new kitchen in August (we are moving home to Canada from Australia) and I'm already wondering what dishes to buy. My hubby is very picky about his cereal bowls and I HATE scratches or black rub/fork/knife lines in my dishes. I'm trying to eat less, so I like a plate with a border (your tippy plate) so that I just fill the middle part with food only – but that is not a deal breaker. Thanks for the great points to ponder. I think I am staying away from earthware, fiesta, melamine and corelle. As great as corelle is, I just hate it! Janelle
I like the dishes you went with! I know what you mean about being particular about the bowl shape. Now that I think about it, we couldn't find a pattern we agreed on that had bowls deep enough for my husband. Some wonderful person managed to find and give us a set of 4 bowls that matched our dishes, but were about twice the size of the standard bowls.
I have corelle, and they are fabulous. I also have some stoneware, and I have chipped a few plates (but they were very cheap crappy ones). Not many dishes match though, so we may be buying new some time in the near future, so thanks for all your research! I never would have thought about stacking bowls, but you are very right, I hate when they take up too much room because they don't fit inside one another!
We have Corelle too, we bought plain white one’s at Walmart, (they had the best price for the same dishes at Target etc.) and we love them, you can buy extra things ala carte as you need them and you can get tiny dipping bowls, large serving bowls, and extra salad plates (we eat off of salad plates, regular dinner plates just seem so huge!) I love that it is nigh on impossible to chip or break them, and with the plain white, they are just simple and tasteful!