Where Do You Keep It All?

Tomorrow, June 5th, The Tablescaper is celebrating her 2 Year Blog-aversary and is hosting a really fun meme called "Where Do You Keep It All? Part 2". I encourage you to check out her wonderful blog, if you're not already a follower. I was almost speechless when I saw her collection of dishes!  I'm sure I'll be amazed at some of the collections, and probably envious of how creatively and neatly some others have managed to store theirs.

In the meantime, I will show you where I store my dish treasures; which by comparison to some fellow dishaholics, is probably very small.

Like many, I have a china cabinet in my dining room, which is pretty large and holds a great deal of my things:

It's quite packed. I confess that sometimes I have nightmares that the floor underneath this behemoth will give way and this whole thing will crash through into the basement. I don't know why I think of such crazy things. The floor is very sturdy and Erik laughs at me, but I have a tendency to worry about strange things.

The top part of the china cabinet has three deep glass shelves. There are lights also inside, and a mirrored back, to reflect all my pretties.

On the top shelf, I have some of my formal china displayed. Each piece of the five-piece place setting is shown, along with the formal glassware; the water goblet, wine glass, champagne flute. Also displayed at each 'setting' is an individual covered butter dome and a footed dessert bowl. I have three 'place settings' across the top shelf.

On the left side of the china cabinet, on the second and bottom shelf, I keep some other, more casual glassware; a margarita pitcher, magarita glasses and martini glasses. I also have some 'everyday' balloon wine glasses, which you can't really see in this photo. I like to have an even number of everything. My formal china has twelve  place settings, so I generally like to have twelve of everything else. I keep about eight of each of these types of glasses in the china cabinet, where I can get them easily. The rest are stored elsewhere, as I will show you later.

Towards the center of the shelves, there is an assortment of serving pieces and extra glasses and even a couple of vases.

The top half of the china cabinet is actually a separate piece. It sits on a base, which has two deep drawers and a two small side cupboards. In one of the cupboards, you can find the rest of my formal china, safely zippered into these padded storage containers. These padded china keepers also came with soft, poofy plate dividers, so each dish has a soft barrier between it and it's bretheren.

The other side cupboard has the platter and round vegetable bowl that go with my china, in their own keepers, and some seasonal S&P shakers.

Between the two side cupboards are two big drawers. The top drawer is felt-lined and has spaces for silverware, with an attached felt cover. This is where I keep my formal silverplate flatware and matching serving pieces.

The second drawer holds some serving trays and platters, relish dishes, a box that holds my vintage salt dips, and some thrifted dishes that I use to mix and match with my china, or use as appetizer plates at parties.

Our antique sideboard is also a valuable storage space (as well as a great place to serve food!).

The top drawer is lined in pink taffeta and has these dividers. I presume they were meant to hold flatware, but I use them for misc. items, like candles, napkin rings, my silver ladles,pastry tongs and our fancy chopsticks that have their own individual satin cases.

Like the china cabinet, the sideboard has two side cupboards. I use this side to store barware; an ice bucket, martini shaker, stir sticks, cocktail forks, other bar tools and also some seasonal candy bowls.

The other side has bread baskets and also a large assortment of paper party goods, like cups and napkins,( most of it is for Hallowe'en!). I also keep my Breville Panini Press in here, since I have such limited kitchen cupboard space and no room for it in the kitchen!

The two large drawers in the center are for my linens. I have an addiction to linens, particularly vintage linens. Both of these drawers are stuffed almost to bursting. I told myself that once these drawers are full, I cannot buy anymore linens. I guess we'll see if I stick to that rule!  This drawer has mostly placemats and napkins, with one or two tablecloths in it.

  This drawer is for tablecloths and table runners. You may recognize some of these from  my tablescapes!

We have steel cabinets from 1940 in our kitchen and there's not many of them and space is very limited, so I use these side shelves for some of my vintage juice glasses and sundae and malt glasses .

So basically, I have only this one cupboard for dishes AND glasses. This is where I keep my casual dinnerware, and my blue transferware.

Some of my antique blue transferware is displayed (and some of my creamers also) because of space limitations. When we renovate our kitchen (which will hopefully be in my lifetime, haha) I would like to have glass fronts on some of the cabinets and display space along the top of the cabinets for displaying dishes. I think that pretty dishes should be seen!

The last place I have to show you is this little closet in one of our unused bedrooms upstairs.

In here I have a padded stemware chest and boxes for my glassware, all of it that isn't on display in the china cabinet. Some of the other big boxes are actually storing votive candles and glass votive holders from my 2007 wedding!  (We had rented candleabra for our reception tables and I bought bulk votive candles and holders for the centerpieces. I keep meaning to sell them on Craigslist or eBay, but still haven't gotten around to it!)

So that's pretty much it! I have two or three pedestal cake stands that I keep in our pantry closet, but I didn't really want to show you my food pantry...it's not that exciting. Plus, we keep all our liquor and booze in there also, and when it's all grouped together on one shelf, some people might wonder if we have a drinking problem!

Thanks for joining me! And be sure to stop in at The Tablescaper and wish her a Happy Blog-Aversary!