Our everyday dishes are the now-discontinued Pfaltzgraff Seychelles pattern. They're a coordinated mix of blue, green, and white banded pieces:
We've had them since our wedding 12 years ago, and I like them, but they haven't held up as well as I'd hoped. They're heavy, and we've lost a bunch of plates to cracks, especially in the microwave and dishwasher. At one point we had 12 place settings, with some extra pieces that I picked up at an outlet getting us to as many as 16 salad plates. Now we're down to 7 salad plates, and we're always running out of them.
I have tons of platters, serving bowls, etc. to go with this pattern, plenty of mugs/bowls, etc., so full replacement is a bigger investment than I really need/want.
I'm debating between trying to plug the holes in our set for the short term via eBay and replacements.com, vs. just getting some plain white salad plates to use with everything else, and as we inevitably lose more stoneware pieces, slowly transitioning to whatever white dishes we chose. I can get 4 salad plates for around $30-40 on eBay right now; more regularly I can get imperfect ones on replacements.com for about $15/ea (ouch).
Or... we can slowly switch to white. If we did that I'd want something lighter weight than the stoneware, but not as light as Corelle. Doesn't need to be as unbreakable as Corelle, but I am tired of the microwave cracking. Williams Sonoma has a ton of white sets and it's sort of overwhelming before I even start looking at BBB, Macy's, and the zillion other purveyors.
Which route would you go, and if you recommend starting to work on a set of white dishes, please rec a set?
We registered for the Everyday White at Bed Bath and Beyond. We've been married for almost 9 years and they are still in perfect condition - and easy to replace a piece when our kitten aka GODZILLA knocks one off a counter and smashes it.
I just replaced our 11 year old wedding dishes with fiesta ware. I love them and want all of the colors.
We started with 4 colors when we got married, but I gave up on that after replacing the orange plates too many times because that was the one the counter surfing Newfoundland always broke, so now we have many colors. I usually grab two place settings of whatever is about to retire if it's something I like. I adore it! And if something breaks, I'm not stressed at all because we're all mixed and matched and crazy. But I avoid white because it shows silverware marks.
I don’t have a specific set to recommend but our 12 year old fine bone china has held up very well to daily use. We have an old Mikasa set (I dislike the brown toned pattern now) but I can’t get rid of them since there is literally one chip on one plate.
My MIL was adamant that bone china holds up best and so we paid the bit extra for our everyday set and I guess she was right.
This won't be helpful if you're definitely set against stoneware, but our Denby set has been going 13+ years and not a single piece has so much as chipped. We're not particularly careful with them and they've just held up beautifully. We have mugs, plates, pasta bowls, two other sizes of bowls, and a few other miscellaneous pieces.
Another vote for Denby, even though they are still heavy. We have Denby White and I love it. We have used our plates and bowls daily for 10 years with zero damage. The only piece I have ever broken was a serving dish and that was because I knocked a glass spice jar out of a cabinet and it fell and hit the edge of the dish. It's super durable. I grew up with my mom's Pfaltzgraff so I was just assuming all plates cracked and chipped to some extent, but like I said, no damage at all to our Denby.
Ha! I was all set to be like "Try Corelle!" then I got to the end of your post, lol I have "nicer" plates, but I use my mom's old Corelle set that she bought in like 1982. I have like 20 of the dinner plates, a whole mess of dessert plates, cereal bowls, pasta bowls, etc. I freaking love this stuff. The plates are light, they stack really well and they are practically indestructible. This year, now that the house is (mostly done) and we're (mostly) done with big purchases for awhile, I'm planning to buy a more current looking pattern--these are the ones I'm thinking of www.corelle.com/product/square-pure-white-105-plate
Ha! I was all set to be like "Try Corelle!" then I got to the end of your post, lol I have "nicer" plates, but I use my mom's old Corelle set that she bought unlike 1982. I have like 20 of the dinner plates, a whole mess of dessert plates, cereal bowls, pasta bowls, etc. I freaking love this stuff. The plates are light, they stack really well and they are practically indestructible. This year, now that the house is (mostly done) and we're (mostly) done with big purchases for awhile, I'm planning to buy a more current looking pattern--these are the ones I'm thinking of www.corelle.com/product/square-pure-white-105-plate
#corelle4lyfe
We have Corelle too! I even pick up vintage Corelle when I see it because our set didn’t come with round dessert plates. I don’t use Corelle bowls though.
We have some Fiestaware bowls (so thick they don’t burn my hands carrying soup) some smallish colorful, patterned bowls from Costco, and huge noodle bowls we bought at Pearl River in Chinatown that we love. Clearly I didn’t get the everything has to match memo! Everything we have is pretty and works perfectly for how we use it.
Don’t get me started on my platters and Pyrex collection.
We have Williams Sonomas pantry line and really like them. Classic, well priced for the quality, and a consistent line for them to carry so we can replace as needed.
I have Crate & Barrel white porcelain china from our wedding that I really like, but we hardly use it. It's supposed to be our "formal" china, but it could be used for every day, really. We had Fiestaware for every day (which I still also use sometimes), and then we went to...Corelle! Just in case you change your mind, I have this pattern and it looks nice. The edges have a bit of a wave pattern. I really love it, especially with kids.
We replaced our nice solid black set from our wedding with the corelle plates. The Corelle are thin (easy to store) and unbreakable. We have dropped them and they’ve been through a lot with two kids and survived.
One of the best decisions I’ve ever made was to register for all white dishes. I don’t think you can buy our set anymore, but it has lasted 13 years, and I think we have chipped one plate. It’s really heavy, though!
I love solid white because I can add plain white serving dishes from anywhere and they’ll match. Plus, I can mix in colored dishes to match an occasion and it works well with our stuff. I have serving pieces from almost everywhere now! LOL. I always think food looks really pretty on plain white dishes, too.
The downside is that my stuff is super heavy. We have switched to Corelle square black & white for dinner plates (I use the small white ones for lunch). I love them, especially because they’re easy for the kids to help load/unload the dishwasher and set the table. They’re durable and inexpensive, though I don’t think we’ve broken one yet. With little ones in the house, I really love Corelle.
We have Williams Sonomas pantry line and really like them. Classic, well priced for the quality, and a consistent line for them to carry so we can replace as needed.
So they are good with carrying a particular line for a pretty long time? That is important to me if we start switching to white because I think it'll be a while before we fully convert.
For those suggesting things like Fiestaware, we're not entertaining anything colorful. Our fine china is black & white, and one of the reasons I wanted plain white is that pieces could go on the table with our china without drawing attention. The soup bowls for our china don't tend to be super useful, for example, so a dish set that included a more useful bowl shape that we could use with the china dinner plates would be nice.
I bought my dishes from Kmart 16-17 years ago maybe? They are long since discontinued. I'm so over them, but can't justify getting new dishes because they are still in such great shape. I've long since broken all of the bowls, but still have salad plates, dinner plates, cups and saucers. I might actually see what Replacements.com will give me for them based on the prices that they are selling them for LOL www.replacements.com/webquote/mtwaco.htm
If/when I ever replace them, I'm going to go with plain white catering plates.
I have a set from Pier 1 that's held up really well. It's a blue batik print. I want to replace it with a set that's really colorful- like a moroccan style print but haven't found anything I like enough yet.
We have Williams Sonomas pantry line and really like them. Classic, well priced for the quality, and a consistent line for them to carry so we can replace as needed.
So they are good with carrying a particular line for a pretty long time? That is important to me if we start switching to white because I think it'll be a while before we fully convert.
For those suggesting things like Fiestaware, we're not entertaining anything colorful. Our fine china is black & white, and one of the reasons I wanted plain white is that pieces could go on the table with our china without drawing attention. The soup bowls for our china don't tend to be super useful, for example, so a dish set that included a more useful bowl shape that we could use with the china dinner plates would be nice.
I have Marin from Crate and Barrel. Mine is in a discontinued color, but they have white. They've held up well. I think they look nice and solid, but they aren't very heavy.
Ha! I was all set to be like "Try Corelle!" then I got to the end of your post, lol I have "nicer" plates, but I use my mom's old Corelle set that she bought in like 1982. I have like 20 of the dinner plates, a whole mess of dessert plates, cereal bowls, pasta bowls, etc. I freaking love this stuff. The plates are light, they stack really well and they are practically indestructible. This year, now that the house is (mostly done) and we're (mostly) done with big purchases for awhile, I'm planning to buy a more current looking pattern--these are the ones I'm thinking of www.corelle.com/product/square-pure-white-105-plate
#corelle4lyfe
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We had a Pottery Barn set when we first married. I loved them at first but then they started chipping and breaking. We switched to the white square Corelle ones you linked and aabsolutely love them!
We've used our Lennox Tin Can Alley daily, for the past 8 years, without any issues. They've held up well, despite frequent microwave & dishwasher use. A 12 piece set is only $199 at Bed Bath & Beyond, plus you can use 20% off coupons.
Ha! I was all set to be like "Try Corelle!" then I got to the end of your post, lol I have "nicer" plates, but I use my mom's old Corelle set that she bought in like 1982. I have like 20 of the dinner plates, a whole mess of dessert plates, cereal bowls, pasta bowls, etc. I freaking love this stuff. The plates are light, they stack really well and they are practically indestructible. This year, now that the house is (mostly done) and we're (mostly) done with big purchases for awhile, I'm planning to buy a more current looking pattern--these are the ones I'm thinking of www.corelle.com/product/square-pure-white-105-plate
#corelle4lyfe
This is what I was going to say too. LOL
We have white dishes from Crate & Barrell from our wedding and like 2 months later they discontinued it. The salad plates are also what break the most often for us and they're also what we use the most often. Once we start getting low on them I plan on just getting some Corelle plates. We have a few huge soup (pho) bowls that we LOVE. I also plan to get some Corelle plates once DS stops throwing plates and we can start giving him "real" plates. I'd be too nervous to give him the Crate & Barell stuff. I'm so mad at them for discontinuing it!