Excited to share that after much deliberation, GW thread reading, and sale price watching, my new everyday dishes have arrived. I decided to go with bone china, in the hopes that they would prove chip resistant, and grey cutlery mark resistant. I am so sick of those gray lines. I was also inspired that my two sets of pfaltzgraff dishes combined were down to 5 plates and 3 bowls. Comments from the family peanut gallery like 'why dont we ever have plates' pushed me to decision making 'code red'. I got a great deal at Macy's with a buy 1, get one place setting offer. I got 5 place settings of Lenox, Tin Can Alley 4 and five of Tin Can Alley 7. It also seriously considered Wedgewood Nantucket Basket but it is made in China and the Lenox is made in the US- clincher! The in-store price was less than the on-line price, and in-store still honored the bogo. Plus I got my 15% of macy's card discount. All told the 10 4 piece place settings delivered to my house came in at less than $350- I thought that was awesome. Now I can serve Thanksgiving in style! Last night we used the new dishes at dinner and it was lovely. The thinness of the china is a delight after heavy stoneware. It looks so pretty, even when dirty and loaded in the dishwasher. Thanks GW for inspiring, and educating.

Even china that is "microwave safe" can show crazing after repeated use. We put our Gien dishes into the microwave but the crazing is starting to show so I hauled out some old glass plates and we're using those now. Or paper. Before I bought any china that I thought I would use in the micro, I'd buy a piece, put some water in it and test it. Zap it on high for 1 minute and see if the piece feels hot. If it does, it will be ok but have a shorter life. The cooler china stays, the longer it will live. All dishes are made from some type of clay. Stoneware -- anything that looks brown/beige when chipped -- has a high mineral content -- which means metal particles that heat up in the wave. Porcelain and china have less, but always good to test first. Re: Crate & Barrel. I bought a set of dishes there 5 years ago and they still have the same ones. I can still add any pieces. Some of their stuff is trendy; some is staple. Not everything goes away. I personally like to buy dishes in house sales or auctions. That way you don't pay "retail" whether you shop at Crate or Penneys. Waay cheaper. Added a link to an extensive list of tableware sources on Atticmag; some basic; some discount; some simply droolworthy Here is a link that might be useful: Tableware Sources

robin, Thanks for letting me know the floors are oak laminate. It amazes me that I keep liking oak floors when I too had been dead set against oak floors due to not liking my veneer oak cabinets that came with my townhouse and this cheap oak engineered wood floors in the foyers that have very thick coarse grain in them that is very busy. Maybe I would even be open to an engineered oak floor that is not too grainy that is stained cherry. I also am still open to laminate but due to my cherry furniture in my office, I had my heart set on a cherry wood floor with tiled foyers. I just wish my foyers were bigger but I live in North Jersey and as single person needing a lot of square footage to have a big home office as well as lots of personal space, the stylish townhouse fit me better. If I sold my townhouse and moved south, I could get a really nice house with a big beautiful foyer but I am realizing being alone, I am not yet ready to move with my clients here an my clients are so nice. The location I live in is expensive and I chose this townhouse over the house with more land and more bedrooms that was the same price due to the location not appealing to me. Thanks also Robin for letting me know the paint color. It truly is very neutral and may be nice in my home office to warm up the walls. I will try a sample out when I am ready to repaint. I love all my window treatments in my home I chose except for my first choice that is in the home office. I dislike the long strings of my Alta (a division of Hunter Douglas) double honeycomb blinds since they are always messy and tangling. I dislike the neutral color I chose (an off-white with a taupe faint design in it that looks great in the day time) at night since the blinds then appear gray. I wish I went with the 3/4" size pleat rather than the 1/2" size pleat. But I did not make these mistakes again and I learned that it is worth paying a little more for retractable cords or continuous loop cords or going cordless if you are tall (I am not). When you are ready for blinds, let me know and I will take pics of my other window treatments that I love especially my Champaign colored Shangri-La sheer horizontal blinds in my family room that has a cathedral ceiling and a wall of windows. The blinds really make the room so bright and happy and goes so well with the Bone White walls and bright white trim. Everyone who sees them loves them. I also love my retractable corded top-down bottom up Architella black-out Duet blinds in the linen color in my bedroom softened up with crinkled soft white sheers around them.

Hi there, I just bought a very complete 'set' of dishes from Crate and Barrel in the Aspen pattern. It's quite simple but I think its very elegant. 14 dinner plates, 10 salad plates, 8 low bowls, 8 cereal/ice cream bowls and 4 serving bowls came out to about $225 or so. I know its a an uneven set but we use our plates more than salad plates and so I expect more eventual breakage. Also I prefer the cereal/ice cream bowl shape and DH likes the low bowls so we split the difference. One thing is that Aspen is a very popular set and they have a tough time keeping it in stock. I'm still waiting for 10 of my dinner plates and 4 of my cereal bowls to come in. HTH