house idea: plate wall

i really really really would like to do this one some day. it would take some time to collect the different sizes and patterns, but it would be pretty cheap - most vintage plates i've found at the thrift store typically cost 50 cents to two dollars. and there'd probably have to be some splurge purchases in there, too - plates that were too pretty to pass up.

i think this might be hard though because i'd want to keep them in my cupboard and acutally use them as plates - which i currently do. i have a small collection of vintage plates, ten or so, and i think it would be hard to part with them. i started collecting them because i went to a restaurant once and none of the plates or cups or utensils matched and i LOVED that. cheaper for the restaurant to thrift the serving stuff, and it just looks so lovely. i had ordered some soup and a sandwich and the soup bowl was tourquoise with a red rim, the plate was beige with strawberries and my mug was bright yellow. SO pretty.

anyways, since then i've been thrifting vintage plates and mugs and i would love to have every single one of my plates and stuff NOT to match. and if one breaks, then it doesn't matter because it's not making a set of 4 glasses into an uneven set of 3, and it gives you a good excuse to go thrifting!

a mini plate wall.

i really love this one. just look at the swoop and curve with the combination of the little and bigger plates. i love that there's one bright blue one, and that it's a peacock. (and i didn't even see this before i wrote the next paragraph below! see the one silouhette plate?! i want to do that even more now.)

another alternative i would want to try is getting cheap blank plates and painting them myself. or have the wall of vintage plates and mixed in would be plates with silouhettes of each family member, like this:

it wouldn't be so obvious that it was a "family plate wall" but it would be personal and decorative at the same time.

and best of all, you don't have to live in a house to try this one. just make sure it's okay with your landlord to punch tons of holes in your wall in an erratic pattern so you can hang up your plates.