Dishes, done!

I don’t get to say that very often.

For as much as I love dishes, “doing” them is not something I do every day.  And I do really, really love dishes.

Everyone has their thing, right?  That thing/collection/hobby/activity that they regularly buy/collect/do, because they really love it and they just can’t not.  That thing that no matter how good their intentions are with budgeting, they always manage to find a way to justify buying or doing it again, or just adding to the collection?

What’s your thing?

That thing you are drawn to that maybe you can’t really explain why, and lots of other people don’t really get it? 

My son’s is shoes.  My husband’s is golf.  Well, mine is dishes.  I just love dishes, and I realize a lot of people don’t really get it.  It’s ok.

When I was growing up, my family spent summers at a cottage on a lake in Pennsylvania.  It was a big, old Victorian cottage that had belonged to my great-grandparents.  In a rustic wooden cabinet in the kitchen was an enormous set of red transferware dishes that my great-grandmother had bought.  The dishes had different Currier & Ives prints on each (the image was “transferred” onto the dish in the printing process, hence the name transferware).

A famous Currier & Ives print aptly titled, "Home Sweet Home"

These Homer Laughlin dishes evoke the memories of summer time in my childhood.

While these dishes are expensive collectables now, they were what we used every day in the summer, and my memories of being at that cottage on the lake are inevitably enmeshed with images of those Currier & Ives dishes.

Even as a child I knew that they were vintage, and unusual.

I remember warm summer nights on the porch eating fish we had caught that day, or fresh corn on the cob off those beautiful red plates.  Every summer my mom would make blackberry cobbler from berries we’d pick on the side of the road, and serve them in the red bowls.

I suppose that’s what started it, I don’t know.  Because the dishes we used in our regular home/house throughout the year were nothing particularly memorable.

I had tea sets as a little girl, and one of my favorite books was about Francis the badger and her tea party.

I knew someday I wanted to have special dishes of my own.

As much as the food, and maybe more, setting the table is what I love about inviting guests to dinner.  I love to arrange the flowers; I love to pull out the silver and use a nice tablecloth and napkins.  I love for dinner to be a beautiful experience.

Some guests don’t seem to notice this at all.  My favorite guests do.

Few things are as pleasurable as sharing something you love with others who enjoy it too.  I’m fortunate to have a husband who always appreciates these things.

I can count the number of times we’ve eaten off of paper plates in my adult life on one hand.  Even if we’re eating outside.

So, all this to say: I knew that shopping for the dishes for The House of Goodwill would be one of my favorite tasks for the house.

And maybe it was one of the most frustrating as well, as the ever-present budget consideration was a major factor.  And unfortunately so was the “this is way too nice for a rental” factor.

Still, it gave me an excuse to spend lots of time on the internet perusing dishes.  (Don’t be so judgmental!  You have your thing too.)

I even kept my eyes out at estate sales, and thrift stores, to see if I could come up with something that would work, since those would obviously be my cheapest sources.  But while I found all kinds of hodgepodge pieces I liked at the thrift stores, I couldn’t find any sets, and the few sets I found at estate sales weren’t what I wanted.

So here were the finalists from my internet searching, though I can’t really call them contenders as they were too expensive and not really in the running.  I really, REALLY wanted one of these next two patterns.  But I just couldn’t justify it.  They didn’t fit the budget.  The renters wouldn’t take take care of them.  These were the ones I WISHED I could buy:

I love these!  The flower pattern is beautiful, and one of the themes of this house.  And the colors, purple and green, are part of my 1970s pallette I'm using in the house.

Just a little too expensive for a rental. *sigh*

LOVE the hummingbirds on these beautiful dishes!  They go with the bird theme in the house.

And these are the ones I actually bought, after lots and lots of searching.  I thought they were still expensive, considering my small budget, but they were relatively reasonably priced for something that needed to be bought new:

They have the orange and purple in the house’s pallette, and the flower theme too.  Of all the lesser expensive sets, this is what I liked best in the end.

They just arrived! I spent part of the afternoon unpacking and washing them.

In the meantime, we’ve been using an assortment of mismatched dishes left at our condo by a previous renter.  I’m glad I hung on to them; they’ve been useful.  But, my goodness these things weigh a ton!  I have never used such enormous or heavy dishes (my husband calls dinner every night a bicep workout).  I actually weighed them on the scale on one day out of curiosity and guess what?  The dishes and bowls weigh 2 lbs a piece.

Goodbye random dishes!  Maybe (God willing) I'll catch you at the next reno project.

So aside from form and price considerations, I was looking for something a bit more lightweight.

I’ll take my arm workout from kayaking, thank you.