Ask Lemmy

Having fancy china/dish sets for display isn't really a thing the youth is worried about. It used be a social thing, having guests over to eat off (or just see the display) your fancy dinner plate is probably the social equivalent to having the box of 64GB of ram on a shelf above your computer. In other words "yes, we have money and you can shut about it up Aunt Gertrude"

A closed cabinet with glass doors to display what ever you collect is a nice thing to have. The doors help keep dust and cats out.

You mean cabinets manufactured in China? Yeah, a whole kitchen full.

Nope. I think it’s mostly a dead idea.

My mom is still hoarding (for me) a set of fine china dishes I inherited from my grandmother. They’re really nice.

But what am I going to do with them? Add specific furniture to my too-small home to store them so I can pull them out for certain dinner parties? We barely host for dinner anymore, and when we do, we keep it casual.

I think china cabinets go along with a whole bunch of social niceties that were important in the 20th century and have since withered.

My parents (Gen x) have one that they got from my boomer grandma passing. They have a billion different sets of china they're trying to sell or auction, but no one wants it. They've told me it'll be mine when they pass and ugh. I appreciate that it's nice and all, but truly I'll probably just donate it to a rage room or something. A soup kitchen so they can all feel sophisticated. Dunno. I don't want it.

I built one for my parents last summer.

I do have one myself, inherited from my grandmother, full of the dishes that are too precious to break out for Pope God The First because he's not holy enough for early 20th century China my father "remembers from when he was a kid." It's not as large as the one I built for my folks though.

I do...kind of hate them as a trophy case of consumerism?

My peers aren't buying china, but a couple are using china cabinets or hutches to display the things they do collect. There's pretty much an open request that if anyone spots good quality used furniture, to put it in a group chat.

The best thing you can do when someone dies and people try to pawn china off onto you is immediately throw it in the cupboard with your regular plates. At least it has a chance of serving a purpose, then.

(Speaking as an early Millennial)

I have a gigantic cabinet in my dining room/kitchen (not much wall between them so it's kinda the same space). It's 8 feet tall, solid hardwood except for the glass doors, and was originally a built-in from a house in the next neighborhood over. They put it out on the curb and I saw it, hitched up my utility trailer, brought it home and installed it. Best curb find so far.

I use it as a pantry because my house small and doesn't have a closet-style pantry.

I also have a set of fine china that a friend gave me as a wedding present (even though we didn't have a gift registry), but the pattern isn't really our style and I've never taken it out of the box. I don't have plans to buy other fancy dishes, either. I'm very happy with my cheap Corelle (except for the fact that they discontinued the pattern and I wish I had more sets of it).

So, technically, I "have" both china and a china cabinet, but it is very much just a Boomer thing anyway.

I don't know about the cabinets, but you can find used China really cheap at thrift stores. Most people don't care about it anymore, so it isn't worth much. As the boomers are dying their stuff is getting donated.

I personally don't care about fancy dishes, but a lot of folks like to use it 'just because' rather than waiting for a special day.

Plain and normal kitchen drawers. We actually use our China every day.

My mom still has all of her mom's old china from when she passed. It fills up an enormous, ugly, heavy cabinet that eats up a pretty significant chunk of the living room and doesn't go with any of the other decor. I have never, in my nearly 40 years of existence, seen her use a single piece of it. It was always "for special occasions", but we always went out for special occasions, so they still never got used.

I think she only keeps them because they were important to her mom, who inherited some of it from her mom, and possibly even further up the chain. I don't think they're even worth anything; she could maybe get a couple hundred bucks if she were to sell the whole collection, maybe a bit more if she got creative with the listing. There were times growing up where we were dirt broke and couldn't even afford soap to wash a dish and ate dinner off of paper towels, and she still wouldn't let anyone use the china. But it was important to those before her, so I think my mom just wants to preserve it in their memory.

Used to until we moved. We left the china and the china cabinet behind. Only thing we took that was in it was my mom's snow globe collection.

I wouldn't bother getting another. I have no desire to have a set of fancy dining ware that gets used maybe once a year. The only fancy dining ware I need is anything not paper and plastic.

So. Funny enough. Yes. You see its massive and the people did not want to try and move it when we purchased the place. We also got a dining room table and chairs. They actually tried to suggest a few hundred to have them and we are like. Nope. So they just gave them to us.

They are a common wedding gift in some rural communities.

But I don't have one yet.

I inherited most of my grandma's mid-century dining room set, so yes. I keep her china in the bottom, and use the top as a display case and liquor cabinet. She wouldn't exactly be thrilled with my setup, but she'd be happy the furniture stayed in the family.

You call it China cabinet, I call it booze box.

Have no fancy plates, that shit is obsolete.

If I were going to host a fancy dinner, I would go to a restaurant.

Wtf good is China that you have to spend hours hand washing? I don't have servants and I don't have a dining room either. I mean I did, but I put a stereo in there instead. We used the dining room 3x a year. I listen to records every day.

Priorities.

I have a display cabinet! It has Lego in it. I don't have fancy China.

No. I never understood the point of having dishes that get used a few times a year. I suppose that, for people like my grandparents, they got more use hosting bridge nights and the like but even my parents didn't host that much. As someone in his mid-40s, I definitely haven't done much of it.

Boomer thing. My MIL keeps trying to give us hers but we don't have the space or the need for plateware that will never be used.

I have several. I don't want them. Please come take them. I'll give them to you for free to save me the hassle and money of getting rid of them. I didn't want them to begin with and I don't want them now. I did not buy them. They do me no good. They make my life worse.

China is a pretty big country not sure how it would fit in a cabinet.

We were kind of expected to get china for our wedding, but we got our own we liked instead of some old one from our family. We do keep it in a cabinet. We try to use it more often when we make dinner and want to feel fancy or when we have people over for holidays or dinners. We also drink out of our wedding champagne glasses fairly often because they are our only ones and we like them. Also the bottom of the China cabinet also holds other kitchen and serving stuff.

Yes, of course, where else am I gonna keep my china? Older millennial, for reference.

Uh, also live in a century home (1880), so there's no closests or cupboards; the expectation is you'd have wardrobes and cabinets and other heavy storage furniture for that purpose instead of anything built-in.

No. I do not.

I had a really nice one, and couldn't sell it at any price. I couldn't even give it away, even to used furniture stores. They can't sell the ones they've already got.

I thought about turning it into a humidified guitar display cabinet, but I don't have the time or place to do that right now, so I just left it in the storage unit when I closed it out.

Yea. A couple. I love them.

I don't keep china in them. One has a bunch of baking gear and lots of photos. The other is in the basement and is used as a pantry. Nice hard wood cabinets that will last forever in a house with woefully little storage.