Using Restaurant Ware at Home

Ever teach a set of preschoolers how to do the dishes?

Ever seen a two year old fill up a drinking glass all by his self?

Can your current dishes stand up to years of daily use and abuse?

Does your family enjoy eating outdoors, but you find it hard to take “nice” dishes to the picnic table?

These are some of the reasons we chose to purchase restaurant quality plates, bowls, and cups to incorporate into our daily tableware.

A few years back I began teaching my then-preschool girls how to do the dishes. With teeth clenched in that smile all moms have when their babies do something that will surely have to be redone later, I realized quickly that if this were to become a daily chore, we were in for a shortage of dishes!

 I tried adding a few dollar store picnic-ware plates, but found these to yield to every fork mark and knife slice we gave ‘em. We needed something very childproof that wouldn’t have to be discarded in a few months! Already equipped with a practically invincible set of stainless silverware from our wedding, we found a box of restaurant-quality frosted plastic juice cups at a garage sale that passed the test. I was hooked!

After a few months, I had my eyes peeled for plates and found pastel divided plates at a thrift shop. Then we explored a used restaurant supply store and found a deal on plastic bowls and nostalgic looking lunchroom trays. They were previously used in an old school cafeteria, but in excellent shape!

For those seeking a pretty table, an elegant step up could include clear salad plates or solid white restaurant china. Or perhaps just look at different colors. I have found that in order to accommodate school colors and restaurant themes, restaurant ware can be bought in a variety of colors or even patterns that would match most kitchen décor. Think of it like you would your usual dishes and mix and match patterns and colors or select just one monotone for all of your dishes for simplicity.

Our choice is usually function over style, but I hope to be able to incorporate more stylish pieces as ours eventually disappear. (Here’s where you might notice I said that our restaurant ware will disappear before it breaks! So far, I lose more bowls to “feeding the cat a treat” than really wearing them out!)

They outlast cheap imported summer plastic picnic-ware by a mile.

What type of dishes does your family use?

You can find this post linked up at:

Weekly Homemaking Party

Our Story

     Six months after we were married my husband and I moved into the 8 x 48 foot shipping container we began affectionately calling, “The Box.” It had previously transported tires, smelled like hay bales, and was a generous gift from a parent.

     We had it delivered to our new place in the middle of a field, rented a moving van to haul all of our stuff from our modest 700 sq. ft. apartment to our new 384 sq. ft. home, and with the help of some neighbors, we spent our first night there on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by all of our stuff.

     Our new home looked like the inside of the moving van we had just packed and unpacked. It had tall metal walls, a wooden floor, and visible rivets and steel frame. We’d brought our garage sale couch, inherited kitchen table, donated queen bed, and a bunch of packrat-style boxes from our previous dwelling, and that made things seem a bit more like a home, but I have to say it looked a whole lot like we were now living inside somebody’s storage unit!

     We could enter and exit our new place through the large double doors on one side. But once we got indoors, we could not fully close the big doors from the inside. I started the first cold January night in our box with a new bedtime prayer. “Please Lord, don’t let a snake, skunk, raccoon, ’possum, bat, or other stray animal waltz into our new home while we are asleep!”

     Within the next few months my husband installed a few storm windows, and put up an interior wall with a big hinged dutch door. He built this five feet past the container’s opening so that we could have a normal sized door to open and close (to keep critters out), and have a small porch area we could store our tools and mud boots in. We call this room the mudroom.

     Next was another interior wall that portioned off the back half of the container for a bedroom. Once the bedroom was completed it really did feel just like a home! (And it still does. ;))

     Over time we also installed basic solar electricity and lights, an off-grid sink, propane stove, wood stove, basic cabinetry, and many, many, many shelves!

     Fast forward over five years and we decided to move. What do container homeowners do when it’s time to leave? Take our home with us! After some careful planning and packing, we moved the container to our new location and moved all of our things back inside (no, we didn’t have the option of using our house as the moving van!).

     And now that we’ve settled in a bit, it is time to show people the story we should have been sharing all along! We have made container home living WORK as a no-mortgage way to live comfortably.  We haven’t stacked four containers or put on an addition (yet!). We didn’t hire an architect or do an expensive designer remodeling job just to make it livable. We only added simple elements to the original design of the container to make it a home. It is possible to transform a shipping container into a functional home with very few modifications.

     We have lived in this shipping container as newlyweds, and as parents of 1, 2, 3, and 4 children. We've lived in the dry plains region, and in the lush piney woods. We've been off-grid community members, and family farm tenants. We don’t plan to live in it our entire lives, but “The Box” is our home, and so far it has served us well. Thanks for taking a look at our journey. I hope you’ll follow us.

     -Carol

The Shipping Container Family