I think it works if your look is vintage and Chintz.

Great idea & much less likely to be loaded with lead. I needed bowls to use for oatmeal, got some great new Gibson bowls. Love them. Had bought some new ones before hand & they were heavy & I just decided to see what else I could find. There are a lot of nice plates come through TS near me. I don't buy anything that is scratched up or crazed. Have fun!

I am not sure what our look is. Definitely not formal. We live in a log home with an informal, mountain lodge feel. Hmm. That could be interesting, looking for animal/nature themed plates?

Wow! animal, nature, apples, depression glass, field is wide open! Have fun!

Our town used to have an arts & crafts co-op that also had a small lunch room, serving 'home cooked' type meals. Lunch only, of course, it was very popular with people that had jobs downtown, also became 'the place' to go to meet your friends for lunch, or maybe just dessert, whatever. Anyhow, when it first opened, the dinnerware, etc., was all donated by members of the co-op. Not new things, but dishes they no longer wanted or had use for at home, but were still in good condition, no chips or cracks. Everyone seemed to donate fairly complete place settings, but mostly only a few place settings from each donor, so there was a great variety of styles and patterns. It made some very attractive table settings! In fact, the look became quite popular, and we kept it for quite a number of years, even after we could afford to get 'real' restaurant ware. It was such a cozy, homey look. Sounds like an ideal answer for your informal log home! And all the fun of a real excuse to go to garage sales, thrift stores, resale shops, estate sales, etc. I agree with sunnyca, the field is wide open! Have fun, and I hope you will come back & show us pictures of some of he treasures you find!

Rusty

This is exactly how I went for Christmas dishes. My table cloth is a pine tree look so the plates remind me of ornaments..and each night all season we have a NEW look on our table but they are all FESTIVE!!

It took me almost a year, but I created a set of white dishes completely from thrift stores. I'd find one or two dishes I liked, and just add them to the pile. I now have a 4-piece set with dinner plates, soup bowls (those do match -- lucked up and found 4), cereal bowls, salad plates, cups and saucers. They are all white, but not all necessarily the same shade of white. My silverware is the same. It's all quality, mostly Oneida, but in several different patterns. Everyone loves my table. I think all total, I probably spent $30 for all of it. Most of the plates I got 2/.99 at Goodwill, and picked up the silverware a couple at a time for 25 to 50 cents each.

My "good" silverware is kind of a crazy quilt like this. Partly my mom's, partly my SIL, partly thrift store pieces.

I think keeping a theme of some kind will look better than just any old thing. If they all include the same color, shape (all square?), subject matter (fish, cars, flowers), or decoration technique (transferware, hand painted), they become a collection instead of junk.

I had a collection of mismatched dishes in the past, but kept it to hand-painted Italian looking pottery (that stuff chips like crazy!).

Now I have a collection of melamine plates which all include shades of blue. Any combination of them looks good (but the turquoise and white ones are my fave!)

Also I painted a set of 12 clear glass dessert plates with aquatic designs, each different, but using many of the same colors (blue, green, coral) throughout. They look great, and people want to choose their favorite to eat from.

After having all my dinnerware stolen and using some thrift store plates that were way too small and faded, I wanted white plates, but didn't much care if they matched. I found the soup bowls first; 4 of them with a diamond design on the edges. About a month later, I found 4 plates that had a diamond design too, only not exactly the same one. I don't care. They're really pretty. Now I am looking for sandwich plates. I don't want cups and saucers, because I already have enough cups of different shapes and sizes, and I found an almost complete set of nice heavy Luminarc glasses left out by the dumpster one day, so I'm set on drinking stuff. Once I find my sandwich plates, I'll donate the ones I have now to Goodwill. So far I have $6 invested, and the sandwich plates shouldn't be much more than .99 apiece, so $10 total. Sometimes, in the summer when it's slow there, you can get dishes for 2/.99. That's what I paid for my bowls.

That's amazing you found bowls first and for such a great price. Bowls seem to be the hardest to find at thrift store; plates are always plentiful.