Ours used to all match. Now our plates and bowls are mixed from a red set and a white set. Our cups are glass mason jars with handles all etched with our names. These are great! Except for when we have company. I need to make some that say guests or friends. We use glass everything except for a plastic plate, bowl and cups for the almost two-year-old. I have yet to find plastic that I like for the rest of the family.
We have china that we used to eat on every Sunday. Now our family is too big for the set we have. And I don’t like it enough to buy more. I’m thinking of selling what I do have and buying a HUGE set of something I truly like. China really isn’t that important to have but we sure enjoyed pulling it out and feeling “special” once a week.
The utensils we have do all match and will for a very long time. When we found a set we liked we bought what we thought would last for years. It did but then found our spoons were going missing. The kids were taking them out to dig in the dirt because, you know, the spades and shovels just weren’t cutting it. A few were found in the burn barrel after the trash had been burned. It seems the younger ones got confused between the sink and the trash. So I ordered more and there was a very good sale going so I bought four boxes or enough for 48 people. I’m hoping that will last for at least another decade. We bought these for those that truly want to know.
We use so many dishes that we run on average 5 loads in the dishwasher each day. When we had our Bosch dishwasher we didn’t have to rinse before loading it. I loved that thing! It was so quiet and only took an hour for a load. It finally died on us after 8 years of hard use. We were desperate for a new one and didn’t have time to wait to order a Bosch so we bought one that was in stock. I hate it! It takes two hours and is so noisy and we have to rinse everything in order for the dishes to come out clean. Next time I going back to my Bosch. We only hand wash when the dishwasher has kicked the bucket or if someone needs some disciplining. 🙂 We do hand wash all our pots and pans though.
What do you use to eat on? Are you a family with lots of littles that like to use plastic plates and bowls and cups? Do you use glass for the teens and adults? What about fine china? Do you have some, do you use it regularly? Do all your dishes match or they a hodge podge collection? Do you have a dishwasher or do you wash by hand? If you have a dishwasher are you a rinser or do you put the dishes in without rinsing food off first?
Did you catch last week’s Establish a House topic of laundry? The conversation is still going on!
Oh, the saga of the kitchen and dishes! I, too, bought a lot of silverware so it would be a one time purchase. I think I’ve had only two sets in the 33 years we’ve been married. Dishes, though, are another story. After many years of heavy stoneware I’ve returned to Corelle. Why? Because I have grandchildren who eat here often! It’s far easier to handle, lighter weight, more compact and more durable than anything else. When I decided to make the change I looked at patterns and found nothing I loved as much as the vintage green daisy pattern. So, I “chose” that pattern and started haunting DI, thrift stores and yard sales. I now own enough to feed my whole family with room for guests and it all fits in much less space than the stoneware we used previously. Another fun part has been the thrill of finding the occasional dish. Bowls are the most difficult to come by, but the hunt continues. 🙂 Happy Summer!
In my family we are still very old fashioned. For years as a kid I would get one place setting of my silverware pattern from my grandma for birthday presents. When I graduated from high school I got the fancy box to put the whole set in. As a bridal shower gift my mom got me at least a good portion of the set of dishes I chose. Later for my birthdays she gave me a few more bowls and a fancy pitcher and such to go with it.
I love to have matching dishes! The table looks nice all the time without the worry of taking care of really fancy china. My dishes are just Corelle. We use the plastic restaurant supply type cups in big and medium sizes. I found pretty blue ones that match my dish pattern.
The littlest people use plastic until I can be sure they won’t throw it on the floor anymore.
I generally only need to run the dishwasher once a day. I also do one load of hand washed dishes at the end of the day. All the really big bowls and pots and pans. Also, the goofy little things that just don’t get clean in the dishwasher.
I often cheat and just set the kids’ lunches on the counter where they are eating! (Hey, the counter was washed…) It saves on lunch dishes quite a bit.
I don’t “rinse” the dishes because that uses up SO MUCH WATER! I can’t stand watching people run and run and run the water and then run the dishwasher afterward. I’m a serious water miser. Probably comes from living in the Mojave desert and having insane water bills!
Anyway, I just get a scrubby thing wet and wipe off all the main gunk and then put things in. As long as the little pieces of food are off and any stuck on applesauce or oatmeal, things get clean. You’ve got to have one with a disposal in the bottom to really get the bits of food and mine doesn’t have that.
Cocoa, how on earth does your family keep the dishwasher running 5 times a day?!?!?!?! Is there someone constantly in charge of loading and unloading it? Is it pointless to even put the dishes away as you’ll just be using them and putting them back in? Wow. I can barely keep up with the one load we do and getting the kids to empty in once a day.
My family growing up didn’t have a dishwasher until there were 9 kids. We did lots of dishes! ( :
Yes, someone is in charge of loading and unloading. They have learned if the dishwasher is unloaded before meals they only have to load a little bit because everyone will put their own dirty dishes in the dishwasher after eating.
Wow, our bottom-of-the-line Bosch dishwasher is really picky about having everything rinsed off. Next time I’m getting one with a garbage disposal. 🙂
I only have two kids, so we don’t usually have a hard time scrounging up enough dishes out of our two sets. We use ceramic plates, even my four-year-old, although we do own a few low-profile plastic bowls because the huge cereal bowls are too high for my kids to use comfortably.
I love my Blue Willow dishes. I bought them with the earnings from my first job after college. That was money well spent!
I do have a hard time keeping us in glasses—they break a lot! We have some glass and some plastic.
This topic made me laugh! My husband likes having everything matched but because we have just finished school and getting going on a business we have very few things that match. Our silverware does all match and luckily my kids have not discovered that spoons can sometimes double as shovels. I never understood why my parents would get so frustrated with us kids when we used the spoons for our mud pies, until now! 🙂 We do have matching dinner plates too, but that is it. We use those plates for the adults and then some plastic plates for the kids. We have red, blue, pink and purple. And then there are the bowls which we have all sorts of colors and some glass ones from a previous kitchen set that did match at one time…before I broke the majority of the plates! Cups, we have a mixture of plastic colors for the kids and different glass ones for the adults. I mention the colors because I now realize that it was just a bad idea to get different colored plates, bowls and cups. Bad! My kids are constantly fighting over what color they want. And they don’t want to have the same color as the other sibling or they do want to have the same color and there are not enough clean or we simply don’t have another one. Or if there is one color one child will make a call for it so another child won’t get it. So very frustrating! One day very soon, I think all the colors are going to go out the window and one solid color will come in!
We use a dishwasher and have to rinse everything before loading it, but one day, when we own our own house we will get a really good dishwasher,like the Bosch you mentioned. That sounds fabulous! We do hand wash our pots and pans and of course our knives.
We hand wash our knives too. My husband is a stickler for that.
We used to have matching dishes at one time, but after nearly 12 years of marriage and (almost) 5 kids, all 10 and under, we are left with a hodgepodge of dishes in all sorts of colours… we used to have a bunch of multi-coloured Ikea plastic dishes for the kids, but they soon insisted on having everything match (plates, cups and cutlery) and that got to be too much.
I’m finally started to consider getting a dishwasher, after years of not bothering or thinking I could manage without it. I really hate washing dishes as often as is necessary in our house, and as a result we are constantly running out of flatware and cups, especially. I hope a dishwasher will help me out!
One thing that I’ve changed over the years is to keep the dishes in a bottom cupboard; the kids are in charge of setting the table, so it makes the job easier for them, and surprisingly the baby/toddler never got into the plates.
Fun topic! We use plastic cups/plates/bowls because the children do all the dishwashing. Even the 2 year old can unload the dishwasher and put dishes away because we put them all in cabinets under the counters. It’s wonderful! Ours runs probably 2-3 times per day depending on how much we’re cooking and how much we eat is simply fresh fruits/veggies. Yes, we have to rinse.
I would love to get back to glass dishes but really, with baby #8 due in 3 weeks and oldest only 12 I need the kids to keep the dishes as their chore. It’s about to change hands to be the job of the 2, 4, and 5 year old. They’ve had enough practice with the bigs (ages 7, 8, 12) that they’re ready to take over and excited to have such a ‘big kid’ job. LOL! If only they’ll keep this enthusiasm as they grow, they’ll make some women very happy one of these days.
Call me crazy but I love hand washing dishes. There are 5 of us in my family. We had a rolling dishwasher that I used for a while but when it died, I went back to happily hand washing. Although sometimes this dishwasher needs a break and others take over 🙂
My mother loves hand washing dishes too. When we visit my kids like to help because they get that one-on-one time with grandma.
When we were first married and choosing our dishes, I wanted a yellow pattern and my husband wanted a blue one. (I grew up with a yellow kitchen and liked the feeling of sunshine it brought.) He said I could have the yellow if he didn’t have to wash the dishes, so that’s what we did. The set was Corelle and I loved it. It actually pretty much survived all the kids growing up, but one year for Mother’s Day my teenagers decided it was time for a new set, so they on their own purchased some stoneware – in a blue pattern! I didn’t particularly care for it – I loved the feel of Corelle – but it was fine. Ten years later we didn’t have enough matching dinner plates (tile floors are not very forgiving) and I had mentioned really liking my new daughter-in-law’s choice of plain white plates (from Crate & Barrel), so the kids got together and got me another new set of dishes for daily use. In addition, we have the china set that we use on Sundays. My in-laws gave that to me a little at a time for Christmas and birthdays the first few years we were married. And we have a complete set of both “Sunday” stainless and every day stainless; I’m not sure how I lucked out with the spoons not disappearing! Glasses are another story. Those are pretty much mix-and-match because they break more often. Maybe it’s time to put that on the birthday list. We had plastic cups for toddlers, but they graduated to glass glasses fairly early, at least for during dinner.
As far as dish-washing goes, we’ve just used the dishwasher that came with the house when we bought it, so they’re pretty average. I wash all pots and pans by hand, and try to do it once a day. I know some people can’t go to bed with a messy sink, but I learned that for me the clean sink right after breakfast brought more satisfaction. In the evening I was too busy and stressed with church meetings and homework and getting kids to bed to worry about the dishes (although we would load the dishwasher, start it, put the food away, and rinse and stack everything else neatly). Once I let go of the “everyone is supposed to do the dishes before bed” mentality, my stress levels eased considerably. Now that the kids have all left home, the likelihood that my kitchen will be spotless at bedtime is greater, but still not to be expected every single day.
P.S. One other thing we did that I thought went “against the norm” but did anyway was to keep our plates and bowls in a bottom cupboard. That way the school-aged children could reach them and thus help with emptying the dishwasher and setting the table.
I wish I could buy some more spoons that match our set! It’s crazy how they disappear.
We have a family of 7 and run the dishwasher twice a day. We bought this house 2 years ago and it had the original dishwasher from 1997, I believe. It started leaking so we called the repairman, and he was shocked to be working on an older dishwasher! He told me 95% of his calls are dishwashers less than 5 years old. They really don’t make them like they used to! His advice for buying new was to buy an American-made bottom of the line model, because when it breaks (not if, but when) you can get parts a lot quicker than if it’s made overseas. It’s so frustrating to have to buy appliances these days because nothing is made for quality anymore!!!
We use plastic for the kids and white dishes for grownups, because we don’t have enough for the family. I’m in the market for new ones, though. I love the plain white because it goes with every tablecloth & holiday. We have the plastic stuff from IKEA for the toddler and I love the new round plates so much better than the old rectangular ones! I’m going to buy another set of everything for when friends come over. 🙂
We have a complete hodgepodge. I’m trying to slowly convert over to the plain white Corelle, since I haven’t had a set of matching dishes my whole marriage. So far I only have enough plates small plates and bowls for 4. Oddly enough I didn’t get any dishes for my wedding, We bought a set of utensils at Target for 8 people, but somehow I’ve lost a lot of my spoons too and it’s not nearly enough now, I’ll have to take a look at those ones you just bought. A few years ago I finally went out and bought some cheap ceramic dishes (just plates bowls and mugs) from the dollar store that matched –I was sick of using hand-me-downs from old roommates I had acquired during my college days, but now I’m sick of those. Then my Father-in-law, bless his heart, made us a set of 6 brick colored stoneware bowls in ceramics that are huge and heavy. They do not fit in the dishwasher and the glaze is bumpy so it’s hard to tell if they’re clean. I also can’t stand to run my fork or spoon across them. I know, how ungrateful. I only use them for two things, Cafe Rio type salads, and cooking personal pot pies in. It works great actually.
Both my husband and I loathe doing dishes. Right now we’re the only ones in the house doing them, although the kids help unload the dishwasher. Every time we rent a house, the first thing I look for is to make sure it has a dishwasher, otherwise our marriage would be in peril. With three kids 5 and under most of our load, like the whole top rack is plastics. As for sink dishes, we have yet to come up with a good plan that works for us. Maybe it won’t be resolved until the kids are big enough to do the dishes. One thing that kinda worked for a while, until I got pregnant (I really can’t stand doing dishes when I’m pregnant and my husband generally steps up in those times) was a deal we made where if I had the kitchen completely clean before I cooked dinner then he would do all the dishes after dinner. It generally worked great because he wouldn’t be overwhelmed with a whole days dishes to do, and I got to wake up to a clean kitchen which greatly improved my mood.
I have Corelle in the old 80’s peach hearts style. My teenagers are sooo embarrased by them. Hahaha! My mother bought the same set around the time I got married and has since replaced hers, so I not only have tons of plates, bowls, and cups, I also have all the matching casserole dishes and serving platters as well as little bowls and lunch plates. I am ready for a new pattern, but I will need to spend a fortune to replace all that I have. I love the Corelle because in all the 21 years of our marriage and with 8 children, I can still count on one hand how many dishes have broken. I also love that I can fit all my family’s dishes for the day in one load each night.
As for the cups, I bought the TEXAN brand (like the tumblers at pizza places) cups in peach way back in the 80’s and have loved them. They are stylish enough, don’t break easily, and still look great all these years later. Plus, they match! We went online several years ago and ordered lots more.
We also love our flatware, but started to run low a few years back. We got so lucky to be able to find our exact pattern on ebay from two different sellers and so bought them both. I now have way more than my drawer can hold, plus all the serving spoons to match.
We were given my Nana’s china set, and although we don’t use it every Sunday, we do use it for every holiday and every birthday which turns out to be quite a lot now I think about it.
As you can see, I love to match. I also love long lasting, durable, kid and dishwasher friendly kitchen ware…even if it does embarrass my fashion conscious teenagers. 🙂
We started out almost 30 years ago with a plastic dinner service for either 8 or six, my husband’s white correlleware from college service for four, and another correlleware blue flowered set for 8? and a nice stoneware set for 8. The plastic served us well while the kids were small, but are now all long gone. but now we have inherited and or bought more correlleward of differnet patterns. I have traduationally used tupperware tumblers for the little kids, and when they old ones dissappeared or got too gross, I bought tons of similar ones at walmart. We still use them for quick drinks throughtout the day. We have gone through countless sets of both plastic and glass tumblers for dinner. I like the idea of using the nice stoneware every sudnay, but to tell the truth, I’m not always up to it, so it’s suually correllware except for very special occasions. We have no grandkids as of yet, so almost always have enough dishes for matching place settings. My husband bought us some new heavy stainless service for 12 several years ago, so we almost always have enought of that too since most of the kids have moved out. It seems that we usually run out of kneves first (can you tell we eat a lot of PP&J?) We used to run the dishwasher once a day and wash whatever didn’t fit by hand. Now we only need to run the dishwasher once every two to three days. I still wash most of the pots and pans and bowls by hand.
We have gone through a LOT of breakable dishes over 21 years! We have a mish-mash of various styles of corell dishes (which include a few 80’s style peach heart ones – LOL), plus one set of brightly colored plastic dishes that are well-used. The dinner-sized plates are holding up, but we’ll need to buy small plates again soon. We have replaced our silverware a couple of times as we also keep running out of spoons and a few forks somehow. (Last time I had to get rid of some of the knives because we had WAY too many.) I am so very happy to have my current dishwasher. (We just moved to a new home 2 months ago.) The dishwasher in our last house was a piece of junk. Even if we rinsed the dishes it STILL didn’t get them quite clean all of the time. Now, we enjoy using our new dishwasher that actually WORKS. We handwash our pots and pans and mixing bowls.
Oops. Apparently my daughter was using my computer. 🙂
We have a set of stoneware I got a few years ago for $1 a piece at our grocery store. They are khaki, red, blue and green so they go with any decor. I’m sick of them honestly, but unfortunately I CANNOT get them to break so I don’t have any excuse to buy new ones!
We seem to lose forks like nobody’s business, so we buy a new set every other year or so. I am OCD and can’t handle mismatched silverware.
I used to have china I bought at a shop in England. I only bought 2 place settings because I KNEW I wouldn’t get married. It actually worked out okay. I used my china every Sunday for Nate and I. Two days after I had Toby, my cat broke one of my plates. I was hormonal and it sent me into a panic attack and spiral of screaming (seriously. I was home alone at the time) for an hour. It was intense. After that, I got rid of the china. Not worth keeping a plate and a half and two cups around when it reminded me of the panic attack instead of England.
I might get china again someday but dude. I am all about dishwashers. We do NOT wash our knives by hand because they’d never get washed. Also I always buy cheap-o knives. Maybe if I had fancy ones I’d feel differently 🙂
(Also if anyone wants tupperware, my grandma keeps giving me hers. My entire kitchen island is filled with the really nice, sturdy Tupperware!)
I bought our silverware at Sam’s Club. They have packs of 36 of whatever you need and they’re great quality. We got a new dishwasher a couple of years ago. We looked at the Bosch but they don’t hold much at all, only like 4 place settings! I ended up getting the Kitchen Aid with a 5 year extended warranty. We have a family of 7 and I run it once or twice per day. You can fit like 15 place settings in it! I also don’t have to rinse, so that’s been wonderful! I just run it on the 1 hour wash and they are just sparkling! We bought it at Lowes and their extended warranties are REALLY inexpensive! I figure if I spend $1000 on it and run it at least once per day for 5 years, I’ve gotten my money’s worth 🙂
Ooh, I forgot to mention. We use white Corelle. They stand up to the kids and if a piece gets broken we can just buy a new white piece at Walmart. Made in the USA too 🙂 They also don’t take up as much space on the shelf and aren’t so heavy. I like that part the best. A pile of plates is only a few inches high and you can easily lift the whole thing.
There are six of us and I am a stickler for actual dishes, glasses, and silverware. About a month prior to our wedding, the china pattern we’d chosen had a huge sale and we were gifted with about 20 place settings. We kept about 15 and then traded in for various serving pieces. Sadly, I don’t pull that out enough! As for the “real” silverware, we’d receive various pieces for Christmas and anniversaries, but it wasn’t until just a few years ago that we could all sit down and have an entire place setting each. Prior to that one person might have a fork and another a knife. We liked to think it made fancy days more exciting!
As for the everyday, we started with white Pfaltzgraff, but I really didn’t like the way the glaze would scratch up over time. As the children would randomly break a piece here or there, I didn’t sweat it. My mother gifted me with a set of Fiesta dishes in various colors and I was in love! I pick up plates, bowls, and serving dishes at thrift/ antique stores and never try to match the whole set. When we set our table, there are different colored plates, salad plates and bowls. It’s fun. The everyday glasses are actual glass, plastic is only for outside or kid parties. Since they do break often, I tend to buy them at thrift stores and don’t sweat whether they all match pattern wise – they are all clear glass.
The everyday stainless cutlery story is kind of funny. My sister and I picked the same pattern and each had about 12 place settings. After several years, we both realized we’d always run out of spoons but the pattern was no longer available. When Katrina hit New Orleans and most of my sister’s home was destroyed, she decided to replace all of her dishes and cutlery – I think it was a cathardic move! I talked her into letting us take her matching cutlery and did several bleach washes on them. All were fine and now I have an everyday set of nearly 30! Humorously, I still find us short on spoons….maybe I should check the gardens???
We started out with his and hers sets plus the stoneware set we got at the wedding reception. A garage sale helped reduce the dish sets down to one (wedding set). Now with 7 children and a 20 year history of broken plates and glasses, we settled on Corelle ware. My husband surprised me with the country blue hearts print and bought enough for a 16 piece setting and 16 extra plates. We did discover that Corelle does still break if dropped on the tile in a stack or on the edge of the dish, thank goodness for those extra plates! Cups have been switched from glass mix and match to Tupperware 12 oz tumblers for the bigs and the Tupperware sippy cups for the littles. We have a KitchenAid diswasher we bought last summer. We love it:) Some rinsing of the really chunky plates is necessary and we run it 2-3 times per day. We do hand wash whatever doesn’t fit or shouldn’t go in the dishwasher. Silverware was from Betty Crocker as a wedding gift. When we found out our pattern was being discontinued we bought additional pieces to complete the 16 piece set and 4 extra spoons, forks and knives. Yes, they make great dirt digging tools and I have been known to dig through the kitchen garbage to find one or two that got dropped in. Children have been sent outside to find missing spoons and forks. As for dishes it’s a family chore just like the laundry. All help set/clear the table, load/unload the dishwasher and handwash whats left. With only 16 plates and 9 of us we have to stay on top of the dishes. We keep paper plates as back up for long days when we are behind due to other work. I really don’t like paper plates as they are easily blown away at outdoor meals and inevitably my kids drop them. They also stick to our table so half the plate is left on the table. (we need to refinish the table) I picked up a set of 10 Tupperware camping trays from garage sales a couple summer ago and they don’t get dropped, yeah:)
Thanks for the dishwasher recommendation! Ours is on its last leg and I cannot wait for that thing to DIE!
We bought all of our silverware at the DI. We have divider plates for the littles, and plain glass bowls and plates from IKEA for the 10 and ups. Our fancy glasses are Mason jars, and our everyday glasses are restaurant tumblers and sippy cups.
We use paper plates usually two or three times a week to give the dishwasher (both humand and machine version) a break. We run the dishwasher three to four times a day. Good to know there are others out there like us! 🙂
We didn’t have a dishwasher growing up (ten in the household), and we’ve never bothered in my married life (there are only six of us in the household… takes less than 20 minutes to do all the kitchen tidy-up after a big meal.)
I have a “thing” for visual continuity, so all our dishes are strong stoneware from the restaurant supply store, our cups are stoneware mugs and polycarbonate tumblers (ditto), and our flatware I replaced for $20 on one of those one-day-special sites (20 place settings of large/small spoons, large/small forks, knives, steak knives, and serving pieces!)
When we have loads of friends over, I use a sharpie and write each person’s name on a tumbler. It stays through multiple rinses, but can be removed with a bit of nylon scrubber, too.
I tend to be a kitchen minimalist, myself; we have one cast iron skillet, one cast dutch oven, 2 each of the cake pans/sheets, one small/med/large sauce pots with lids, one regular skillet, one med soup pot, one HUGE stock pot. I do have three pie plates, though. 🙂
hmmm,…. this is a tough one… I think we are currently on our… 3rd set of dishes since we married? when we lived together we fought over whose set to keep. hubs had 8 settings of his VERY dark dishes. I like things lighter. but he thought mine were too “plain” we found a set we loved when we got married and that lasted… less than a year. they kept breaking. everytime I turned around, we would bump a plate too hard while putting it down, or we would open the dishwasher to find they had broken
then, we started buying another set, but had to do it slowly… well, that set got discontinued shortly after we started buying them… so we had 4 plates. lol. everything was all mix and match until we just bought our latest set of dishes. took forever to find them too since hubs does NOT like plain white (my favorite)
we have 12 complete sets of utensils. I don’t think we have lost any yet … but we also don’t have kids.
we used to havea dishwasher. but the new apartment we are in has one of those micro dishwashers and it really doesn’t work too well. plus it takes forever to wash and is super loud. so we hand wash now.
The kids have personalized painted ceramic for breakfast and lunch – we hand wash in between. Dinner we use the set Paul used growing up. The youngest has a wooden bowl and spoon that is handwashed at every meal. Our “good dishes” would be used more if I was tall enough to reach them. The dishwasher is run 2 x a day for the milking pails and boy did I love my Bosch! I also miss having two dishwashers but I don’t think our well could handle 2 at once. It is hard enough to shower or run laundry when the dishwasher is going – complications of a big family in the country!
I have the luxury of having two dishwashers since we redid and expanded our kitchen. It has been great! I have an old Whirlpool, probably 18 years old and I have been very happy with it. No repairs ever. It is rather noisy but it just takes one hour. I also have a Bosch which takes almost two hours and it is very quiet. It is just 4.5 years old. With all nine children at home all day we would run 3 loads or so. We wash the big bowls and pots by hand. I use different colors of plastic cups for each person plus Corelle at dinner. Lunch is the mishmash of other plates. My silverware doesn’t match very well. Maybe someday.
Right now we have a mishmash of dishes. I took the kids to the DI and they each got to pick out the plate, bowl, and cup that they wanted. They are responsible to wash their dishes if they want to eat at the next meal. It means that maybe we run our dishwasher once a day. We do have extras for when company drops by. I keep the extras separate and it helps our cupboard be clean and orderly. I have also bought most of our flatware at the DI too because it is super cheap and the kids were using our nicer stuff outside or accidentally throwing it away. I used to be such a stickler for everything matching, but I have realized that it is more the time that we spend together that counts, not the “perfectness” of the table that matters.