Ain’t Too Proud To Use A Big Bird Spoon
Posted by jefferson on Mar 24, 2012 in Minimalism | 30 comments
Is it normal to have 4 different kinds of bowls in your cabinet? How about 6 different types of plates? Or 8 different styles of drinking glasses? And don’t even get me started on coffee cups or silverware. Somehow, our kitchen cabinets have become a giant cluster of randomness.
Looking back, it’s easy to see how this happened. In the 13 years since I got my first apartment, lots of dishes have been accidentally broken, and needed to be replaced. I am clumsy and we have kids, so it happens. In addition, many random bowls, plates, or casserole dishes have made their way into our rotation after being left here by friends or family during holiday brunches or dinner parties. We of course always try to return these castaways to their homeland, but for whatever reason, some of them have never left.
I will say that we do have enough matching plates, glasses, forks, knives, and spoons– to where we can have somebody over for a meal and maintain relative uniformity on the table, but considering how much use our dishware gets (we very rarely eat out), we have to bring in the reserves on an almost daily basis. This morning, I ate my bowl of cereal with a Big Bird spoon, and I liked it.
I have to wonder if this miscellaneous assortment of glass and ceramic, is a bit of a microcosm for overall relationship with “stuff.” Room by room, our home is filled with things that we have “collected” over the years, obtained in a similar pattern to the dishes. We are not especially attached to most of the things in our house, and most of them get far less use than the assorted forks and spoons in our silverware drawer.
A few months ago, I got on a minimalist kick of sorts, and decided that I wanted to dramatically reduce the amount of “stuff” that I owned. The whole family climbed on board, and we ended up filling up the SUV and dropping off at least 3 full car loads worth of junk to Goodwill. It felt great to donate all of these things that we didn’t need and weren’t using.
Back in the kitchen, Michelle once told me that she was a bit embarrassed by the amount of variety in our cabinets. I respectfully disagreed with her, stating that it showed character, but I was just trying to be funny. In reality, I just don’t think it is worth throwing away all of the dishware that we have, just to spend a bunch of money buying a new matchy-matchy version of the same thing. It would be nice, but it isn’t a necessity. We are all on the same page at this point: with our family in the middle of a full scale assault against our credit card debt, things like having matching dishware, will just have to wait.
What about you guys? Are your kitchen cabinets filled with a variety of dishes? Are we the only ones?
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I don’t think you are the only ones, you are just brave enough to admit it! Our silverware drawer drives me nuts. I like to keep it organized, but that is a real challenge with several different types to constantly sort. Not to mention all the baby and toddler dishes, cups, bottles and silverware.
You just made me laugh and nod along. Yes, my cupboards are a collection of odds and ends. And yes, I struggle with wanting to replace the mess with a nice uniform set of dishes and glasses that match and wouldn’t embarrass me when serving other people. I try to focus on what I love about each random glass or bowl and remember that honestly, most people really don’t care what is in my cupboards. Chances are their cupboards look that way too.
I agree it shows character. We are completely minimalistic in our house, but I think having mismatched items is beautiful and wonderful. I have no idea why we are so set on upholding this vision of perfection, when it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things at all.
Funnily enough, all our dishes match. We are a two person family though, and we bought everything in one giant set from Ikea. Of course we’ve broken some of it–but we haven’t had to make replacements yet
LOL. A big bird spoon. You’re funny.
Mine are filled with randomness. I think we have three different types of plates and bowls, but our silverware and classes are the most moshed. My dream is to have uniform dishes, haha. Except coffee mugs.
We have random dishware too! Our assortment comes from the separate dishware my husband & I had before we got married, and then the dishware we received from our wedding registry. Now that we have a daughter who is a toddler, we now have sippy cups and the like to add to the collection
I’m in the same boat Jefferson. It’s all just a random mix with just enough matching to have people over for a meal. I don’t mind it at all. Most people shouldn’t really care one way or the other. Then again, if it does embarrass your wife it is probably worth keeping in mind just to make her happier when you can afford it.
As for the big bird spoon, that is too awesome. If I had a spoon like that I’d be making a point of using it as my go-to spoon. It sure beats some generic cutlery.
My bowls and silverware all match, but my plates are very eclectic. They were actually a lot worse but I paired them down to about six and threw all of the really ugly ones away. We do have a weird collection of coffee mugs which is even weirder since neither myself or my husband even drinks coffee.
I am glad to hear that we aren’t the only ones..
I think everybody probably has a variety of coffee cups. Do they even sell matching sets?
Tonight I used a Mickey Mouse glass to cut biscuit dough (I wanted square biscuits – the glass was square). I had to go out a buy a set of wine glasses before Christmas for a party we were hosting (12 glasses for $7.99 – no fancy crystal here!)
I have matching plates, but the set is at least 6+ years old, it was a set of 12, and we’ve only broken 2 salad plates so it’ll last for a lot longer yet. I’m not in a hurry to replace anything!
I love having mismatched dishes and cutlery
. I don’t need very much now that I’m off at university, but later on I’ll probably buy different pieces at thrift stores, and hope the end result looks eclectic rather than tacky.
We have been married for 21 years and just got our first matching dishes about four years ago. We keep them in a china hutch and continue to use the mismatches for daily use. When it’s just our family eating together, it’s the food that matters, not the dishes.
Mismatched dishes FTW!
I am sure we will get a matching set one day.. Really.
But it is waaay down the list.
At this point, we could really use a few more cereal bowls.
But we will probably only get a couple, not an entire set.
I have friends that talk about liking certain styles of china. At first I was a little ashamed that I do not have a matching set of dishes so I registered for one for my wedding. But I love visiting kitchen stores and picking up an odd plate, bowl, or mug depending on my mood. The uniformity of my matching set actually bores me. Sometimes I am in the mood to eat my soup out of my bumblebee bowl or have my steak on a daisy plate. And why should I care that I do not have a set of china? My friends complain about having to hand-wash them after their Thanksgiving dinner while I just put everything in the dishwasher. Yes, it would be nice to set a nice table for holiday meals, but I just don’t care to spend the time doing it. I rather stay on the phone longer with my mom or siblings gossiping about family members.
A bumblebee bowl and daisy plate?.. I love it.
I find that I am rarely in the mood to spend time making sure that everybody has an identical fork or knife as well..
My wife and I used mismatched dishes for the first few years of our marriage. We actually had a matching set of Corelle plates we had received as a wedding present, but for whatever reason we avoided opening them – I guess we were waiting until we “settled down”? We have since opened that package so we now have 7 matching dinner plates (dropped one) in amongst our mismatched plates that we had become emotionally attached to. Same with the 6 bowls and the 7 salad(?) plates. Meanwhile the cups and saucers that came with the set never get used. And we never did get a matching set of silverware. We just “settled down” recently by buying our first house; it was built in the late 50′s and is just as quirky as our dish collection, and to be honest, ourselves.
Did you get rid of your old stuff hwen you finally opened the Corelle package or do you still mix and match?
Ha! You’ve hit upon my sentiments as I try to add items to our wedding registry. There are other priorities in our lives — we have nearly all of the housewares we need, and matching dishes aren’t on the list. A dining table might be nice, first… to have something to put them on.
Indeed.. that is exactly what I was trying to say with this post. Matching dishes are just a low priority.. a really low one. Behind replacing mini-blinds, behind planting flowers, even behind getting a new toilet seat!
Speaking of random, I’ll just throw something in here. I hope you itemized every single thing you dropped off at Goodwill to claim on your taxes next year. It’s AWESOME, on Turbo Tax, to list all the items you donated and see that refund number go up. I always used to just get a receipt and put $100.00 on it but itemizing is THE way to go. It’s a pain but it REALLY DOES get you a bigger refund.
Yeah.. I am big on itemizing. We always tend to donate a bunch (probably because we have traditionally bought far too much junk), but it pays forward nicely at tax time.
not alone. we have plastic camping plates in our cupboard only because we needed them when we had “guests” and not enough plates once last fall and they didn’t make it back into the camping gear… so when my kids set the table, it’s one of three types: one of the old white plates we received as a wedding gift 15 years ago, one of the heavy green garage sale plates picked up a few years back, or a bright red plastic camping plate. Absolutely a hodgepodge! My in-laws gave us $ to use for new plates 2 Christmas’ back. We used the $$ elsewhere…. suppose that’s why the refuse to visit?
That’s hilarious.. I bet you have grown fond of those camping plates after they spent a while in your regular rotation!
I get chastised so much for mismatched silverware. I liked to buy interesting ones and purposefulness as I needed when I started out, thus my collection does not match. I was also buying from thrift that THAT freaked people out. I told them it’s the same thing as using silverware at a restaurant, except I know I’ve cleaned them well.
Nothing wrong with that at all.. I bet you could actually find some very interesting dishware, from all over the world, at your local thrift store.
Thanks for this. We pared down to Corelle plates (three patterns) and bowls and our silverware from our wedding…and none of our kids’ stuff matches. I am sometimes wistful when I am at any of my sibling-in-laws’ houses that are straight out of Pottery Barn, but the fact is–this is not a priority for us. The Corelle is pretty enough and safer for every day…that plus some melamine works for us for now.
We might get some Ikea glasses someday but it’ll be a while, and that’s ok with me. But it’s nice to hear we are not alone!
Yes, you are definitely not alone. We are not, and never will be a pottery barn family. Just so much money sunk into something that just isn’t a big priority to us..
Thanks for stopping by!
We purposely have mismatched items. For years we travelled and brought home junk that looked so cool in the street vendor’s cart but just gathered dust at home. Now we buy a plate or bowl or cup from every country we travel to and everytime we use it we have a little burst of pleasure from the memories it conjures up.
I grew up in a family with little money [still there]. We had mix and match dishes and utensils all my life. Mom liked Corelle so we have maybe 8-10 different patterns. My fave is my beloved gold butterfly pattern bought as a set when my parents married in 1970. Many are from yard sales and thrift stores. Most of the utensils are even older. There arent more than 2 matching pcs of anything. There is a large table spoon marked US Navy belonging to my grandmother. A couple of butter knives that were left behind by a previous tenant in a rental house, when I was a baby. We still have a few teaspoons that I loved as a child for the tiny roses on the handle. These items have age and history and memories. Nothing new and shiny can matter so much. I plan to have these things until they break or I am gone. There is so much family history in the most simple everyday things.
While I rather like seeing mismatched china in other peoples houses my own collection got me down. However, a move from Ireland to NZ became a great opportunity to start again. I sold all my household stuff as it wasn’t worth shipping and rebought. The best thing was though I avoided buying patterned china and bought a set of deep red crockery and plain unpatterened knives and forks (it was hard…I love Victorians and flowers). Fast forwards 8 years and some of that original stuff has gone west, but when I replaced I replaced with deep red or navy, and plain cutlery. So you can tell its not part of a set but it all works together…..just enough order to satisfy my need to match things but not so much that I come off as boring and anal.
Most of us has kitchen which has various variety of dish ware. Although these dish wares come in various shapes and colors we love these pieces as they are because behind every pieces are stories we love to share. It could be a gift from a friend or someone special, a token of gratitude or a giveaway from an event we have previously attended. Each piece has a story to tell.