New dining service - help please

[Montifer]

After years of having an 'eclectic' mix of non matching crockery, the time has come to get a new dining service and ditch all the odds and ends.

I think I'd like a plain white bone china set, something like this

I'd like 6 (or 8) dining / side plates, bowls and possibly additional bits e.g. serving bowls / gravy boat / butter dish etc.

All of the dining sets I've seen seem to be 16 plates / bowls and mugs so think I'd be better of buying individual pieces as we don't need mugs and need more than 4 of each item.

DP is very clumsy so will need to be able to replace individual pieces as breakages occur.

I thought I'd be able to find great things in the sales but haven't discovered them yet.

All advice welcome.

TIA

We have this which was our wedding list china. You don't really see it in sales- I think generally it's stuff nearing discontinuation that gets reduced.
I love it as it's so plain.

Also v tough as the sales assistant demonstrated by whacking it against the side of a display unit!

Have you tried one of the factory outlet places near you? The one near us (street) has a Denby shop.

Thanks Loon, your dining service looks lovely, I like the simplicity of the plain white china sets and am impressed it can withstand such a whacking, I suspect it'll get that sort of treatment from DP and 2DSs.

There is a Denby outlet about 45 mins from here but am wondering if they will have better deals than Denby online - the problem being that it's in a giant retail park where I'll inevitably spend a huge amount in the other shops too.

I've also looked at John Lewis own bone china range and wondered if I should look at Debenhams/ M+S / BHS too.

Am quietly sulking that I missed an amazing bargain in the John Lewis online sale (much less than half price offer) hence why I'm so keen to find a bargain.

Would be grateful for any other suggestions

We have Denby, it's very durable but just make sure you check that you don't choose a pattern that's about to be discontinued, especially if you're buying from an outlet store or reduced on-line.

The pattern we had when we got married (in 1998) was discountinued in 2005, we've recently got to the stage where we needed more plates for when we have guests and we've had to choose a new pattern, we'll be having a mixture of the two for a while though.

JL Bone china is very nice and bone china is also very durable, which surprised me. The woman selling us our wedding list stuff dropped some and I cringed, but it just bounced! Might not do the same if you have stone floors, mind you!

What about Ikea? Cheap and cheerful and they have ranges you can pick and choose from, including plain white.

you can get a good price ebaying single bits of discontinued denby

I'm watching a few pieces of Denby on ebay at the moment, eventually I'm planning to sell on my old pattern.

We got the JL set for every day use a couple of years ago and it looks great.

Very durable and blends in with our far more expensive (also plain white) wedding china if we ever need more settings as a one off.

I have this wedgewood set solar

I paid nothing like those prices on the website though. I went to a factory shop in Stoke and paid about £3 a dinner plate and only £1.50 for a side plate and £2 for a bowl. I got eight of everything. DH broke a big plate and I got a right old shock when I saw the price of a replacement

I agree that having a simple white set lends itself to a bit of mixing and matching with other sets as needed.

Like the ebay idea - my current hodge podge collection comprises quite a few old Denby pieces passed down from my Grandma and MIL, perhaps they might be worth something which could be put towards the cost of new service.

I'm in Manchester and wondered if a trip to Stoke would be worthwhile - seems like it might be.

House of Fraser Linea Eternal - we have this, I love it, and it's on sale.

here

I've got the Denby white set - it's very versatile, withstands a lot of knocks and looks like a classic so hopefully it will not be discontinued. A word of warning...the dinner plates are very large. I had to rearrange the cupboards to find a space that would accomodate them.

I bought it from here. Fast delivery, cheapest prices I found on line and fantastic customer service. We had one piece with a minor flaw which they replaced without hassle and arrived the following day. ps I don't work for them!