My kitchen and table circumstances may be a bit different as we have LOTS of drop in guests. DH is way more social than I am, and he comes from a big family (all of whom I can socialize with just fine now with years of practice ;0))

I keep 18 everyday white plates, salad plates, bowls in the cupboard above my dishwasher. I have service for 15 more in chinastone so not fragile and not hand wash around the corner in the built-in cabinet in my dining room. My pantry holds foods stuff, larger serving pieces, vases, cookware not used weekly.

Truthfully, I've been thinking of getting place settings for 6 more in the every day white when they come back to a great price. (Sur La Table Bistro) Those might go in the pantry? I'm a little concerned about adding a lot more unnecessary weight to those upper kitchen cupboards even though there is room to stack higher. Room on the shelves - I'm not a tall person.

CPARTist, so do you keep the full set in the drawer? How many settings? Or just as many as you and your DH use in a day?

I bought Corelle "Old Town Blue" for my everyday set. They are pretty, light weight, and cheap off Ebay. They are vintage 1980's. I do still have three sets of china, Theodore Haviland Pink Spray, Noritake Princeton, and an unnamed Christmas set my husband bought for me in a holly pattern. I don't care if anyone ever wants any of them, I like them.

I keep my breakast/lunch dishes (a set of Johnson Brothers blue and white Indies) in the kitchen and very handy -- in the breakfast room I keep the casual dinner dishes (Spode blue Italian) and in the dining room I keep the good stuff -- my grandmother's china and my Aynsley Pembroke. The breakfast room must has the Spode but I keep tea sets and those odds and ends one always has in the kitchen. I have some odds and ends in the dining room as well (you just can't get away from that nice cake plate that someone cake you or your Mom's crystal bowl that always served the salad at Christmas). You're always going to have odds and ends. I will admit that over the years as I've changed china, I have gotten rid of the "survivors" -- those pieces that were still around.

I only have one large full set (service for 10? maybe) of dishes. My mother's white ironstone. I keep all of the plates (3 sizes) and bowls (2 sizes) in the kitchen cupboards. The pieces (cups, saucers, serving bowls) we only use when we have a lot of guests are stored in bins. I also have some plates/bowls of different designs in the kitchen. I find the white ironstone to be pretty boring so like to use other colors/patterns depending on the meal. We use dishes until the dishwasher is full then start over. Since there are only 2 of us there are a lot of dishes in the kitchen that are rarely used. But they fit there so I see no need to move them elsewhere.

i have 20 place settings ot white corelle and numerous pieces i use all the time....i don't like them but my hands do like them and i can feed a lot of family and friends at the same time i keep them in open shelving across from the dw so i can unload and put the dishes away with very little movement.....i also have about the same number of pieces of fiesta in many colors, also in open shelving in the kitchen, i have used those exactly one time.... i change napkins and glasses and other items seasonally, i guess i'm trying to make up for my visual distaste of the "dishes" i use for every meal....

I keep my everyday China in a drawer next to the dishwasher. (I was late to learn how storing dishes, pot and pans, bowls etc in drawers is so easy and convenient.) The dish drawer holds a service for 10, plus additional everyday such as soup bowls and ramekins. I only run the dishwasher when it is full.

eta: I don’t store cups or glasses in the dish drawer

I have way too many sets of dishes, and that's after I sold a couple sets at our garage sale last Summer, and donated 3 more to Goodwill! I have 2 sets that I use year-round. Three more sets that I use Fall through Winter. And then, when I store those away, I bring out two sets of Spring & Summer dishes. See what I mean?!? But, because my everyday dishes are stored in 3 heavy-duty drawers in my kitchen (like Maddielee, right next to my dishwasher!), I only keep 2-3 place settings of each there. The rest are stored in cabinets under my kitchen peninsula, until I need them if we're having company. And, since our "baby" will be home for a week from grad school on Friday, I'm going to pack away my Fall and Winter dishes tomorrow and pull out the others! I'm also going to, once again, beg her take another set or two back with her (LOL).

CPARTist, so do you keep the full set in the drawer? How many settings? Or just as many as you and your DH use in a day?

I keep 6 place settings in the drawer, so 3 days worth. Dinner plates, bowls (for my breakfast yogurt) and small plates (for lunch). My drawer is 24" wide.

I have my Rosenthal china set of 12 that I use every day stored in my upper cabinets behind glass-fronted doors (as an aside, happily no mullions on the glass). The dishes are neatly stacked, with their accessory pieces (platters, creamer, etc.) placed behind or in between the dish stacks.

All well and good, but then I have my unfortunate miscellaneous china dating decades, back to college, behind solid upper cabinet doors. A few pieces from each phase of my decor taste, and each move, and impulse buys, and a couple inherited dishes that belong to no set, but are sentimental, and also have no value. They are taking up space. One day--one day--I will get rid of them. I need to declutter, they never get used.

I keep service for 12 of my everyday in a drawer in the island across from the DW. I have some matching pasta bowls in another drawer. We seem to go through dinner and salad plates (used for lunch) the most. Christmas plates are stored in the basement, as are white dinner and salad plates for a big crowd. My grandmothers china (only took two trys to get it right) is in the hutch in our DR. I have a heard time parting with any of these, but doubt the kids will want them when I'm too old to care. Anyone want dibs on 36 white C&B dinner/salad plates?

My hoarding of everyday dishes is actually worse than my china addiction. Arthritis in my hands led me away from my heavy china and pottery dishes, back to Corelle. I store stacks of 12 or so seasonal choices in the regular cupboard. Then I commandeered the guest closet for the rest of the sets. Now, I am eyeing an old china cabinet in the bonus room to increase my storage. Like I said, I have a problem :)

I keep three patterns in the kitchen, two patterns in the dining room and the rest are in cupboards in the garage. The patterns in the garage are more seasonal so I usually only pull them out for specific holidays...Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas/Holiday. During the week, we will use the patterns located in the kitchen. On the weekend, I might set the table with one of my other patterns. I love to use my various dishes and linens.

Add me to the list of being addicted to dishes. (that and linens) I have dishes in a downstairs bookcase-mostly Christmas dishes (Lynn Chase Sylvan Nocturne) and various crystal and silver serving pieces I use a few times a year. The other china cabinet downstairs has mostly cut glass, but also some odd serving dishes. Upstairs in the kitchen I have our everyday dishes in the cabinet above the dishwasher-Fiesta Ware. In the dining room built-in hutch I have other various serving pieces and then some dishes I love but use only sporadically as I have 6 dinner plates but only 4 bowls and salad plates- Deruta from Italy. I then have even more dishes in the peninsula separating the dining room from the small sitting area: my mother's Haviland china and the Dansk white ivy that I use when I need a neutral white. Oh my goodness and I forgot the Villeroy and Bosh Botanica I have in the dining room as well. Holy hannah-I have way too many dishes but I love them all and use them and have space for them so oh, well.

I keep my everyday dishes (Spode Blue Italian) in a drawer next to the dishwasher, too.

Our dining area, adjacent to the kitchen, has base cabinets all around the perimeter, and several drawers are filled with the, um, overflow china. I have several different patterns, mostly dinner plates rather than full sets of everything except for the Spode Blue Italian and the Wedgwood Edme. In the dining room drawers are Spode Woodland, Wedgwood Citron (a small set which was a wedding present), my parents' old Wedgwood Edme, Burleigh Blue Calico, Burleigh Red Calico, Adams' Currier & Ives "Winter Scenes" set of 12 dinner plates for Altman's, Adams' Currier & Ives Currier & Ives country scenes set of 12 dinner plates for Altman's, my parents' old Limoges dessert plates, and some miscellaneous dinner plates (Mason's Ironstone and random blue transferware). I also have a set of Burleigh's small sugar bowls, which we use for dessert, in several of their blue and white patterns; I like them because they have the pattern inside the bowl as well, and those I keep with the everyday Spode.

Everything is very easy to get at in the drawers in the dining room : ) . I have a walk-in pantry on the other side of the kitchen, but like morz mine is for food storage, larger serving pieces, vases, etc.

We're 4-7 most nights, with frequent company, so everything gets used regularly. Which is how I justify any additions!

I feel so...under-china'ed! I have one set of C&B Hue dinnerware -- I think I have 8 each of dinner plate, salad plate, and bowls. Also have 8 pottery/handmade bowls because we seemed to use a lot of bowls when 3 kids were all here (cereal, ice cream, popcorn...). And, I have maybe 6 melamine lunch plates. All in one kitchen cabinet.

In the dining room, we have a small buffet that houses the "fine" china that isn't that fine (it's Mikasa Garden Harvest) and never gets used. And somewhere in the attic are a couple of boxes of my mother's/grandmother's china, which is white with purple violets, and I have never used it.

We are starting to plan a new kitchen, and I am having conversations with myself re whether a new kitchen means new dishes...

One of the joys of this house (last stop before the nursing home or the grave) is that I got to remodel the kitchen and bathrooms. The north wall of the kitchen is floor to ceiling, wall to wall cabinets for dishes. The center section has seeded glass doors so that I can see some of the china. There are a few dishes in other locations: mugs above the coffee maker, breakfast plates above the toaster, cat food bowls next to the refrigerator.

In the two everyday dish drawers we keep 12 corelle dinner plates and 12 salad size plates - we started using these because they’re not heavy for our 4 kids to carry around and bonus they fit perfectly in my DW and even better don’t break! When we renovated i tossed all of our chipped pottery barn dishes and replaced with a set of 6 place settings (large plate, small plate, bowl) from Ikea. Inexpensive and the perfect green to match my new kitchen :) i still have my PB salad bowls and some white soup bowls. Like a poster mentioned above a household full of kids used a lot of bowls! We use almost all of the white plates on a daily basis and a few of the green ‘overflow’ ones.

In addition to those i have a set of China in a cabinet that is partly on display because i love it but that we use when we host holidays. I love having that because it’s a complete set of nice dishes without chips etc.

I don’t keep anything we don’t use anymore since renovating it’s very freeing!

Sueb, I'm laughing at the idea of being under-china'ed. I'm sure my husband would say we are over-china'ed : ) .

Moxie, it would be great to see your wall to wall cabinets, both open and closed, if you're so inclined. Thank you!

I've been OVER_china'ed for decades now!!! I have 12 place settings of my everyday dishes - Royal Copenhagen's Tranquebar. They are all in one double cabinet in my kitchen. One other set is in a single kitchen cabinet. All the others, are in cabinets in my breakfast room.

I like having 12 as with it being just me, I only run the dishwasher once a week. I have always hand-washed all pans, so that's not a problem.

I have my good china put up, as well as my holiday china. For every day, just DH and I, I have a collection of about a dozen each of dinner & salad plates and maybe 8 bowls. I have a mixed collection in black & white-I bought them individually. I've got a large collection of serving bowls and we keep mugs in a different cabinet by the coffee station. Since I seldom bother setting a pretty table any more this works for us. If we do happen to have guests over I have enough on hand, but I can always access my good china if needed.

I have open shelving for my dinner plates & bowls, coffee station and another for my wine glasses. Like someone else mentioned, I keep enough on hand so that we can fill the DW before we run out.

I too have survivors of previous sets that don't get used often but do come into service when we have company. I keep them in a kitchen cabinet, and some are behind others that are in daily use. (Extra deep cabinets are nice.) Some are a little higher in the "dead zone"--the place everybody but me can reach. If I didn't have space for them, they'd be stuffed in a closet somewhere and guests could wash their own dishes, but I do, so there they stay.

My good china (which has far less value than my junky Lenox everyday stuff) is in the bottom of a china hutch between kitchen and dining room. It's safe and convenient and rarely used.