Dish Inventory

I am a self-admitted dish hoarder. Yes, I have a problem. I have a Pinterest board called "Dishes I Covet." I can't pass up a pretty plate or glass and need at least two of them. With each tablescaping blog I read, I get new ideas for table setting and new dishes. Now, I have my favorite patterns and tend to like vintage patterns. I also absolutely love 1960s/70s mod patterns.

In an earlier post, I shared where I store my dishes Where do I store all of my dishes? and how I track my inventory in a Google sheet. My two very dear friends, Bestie and Kissy, are also Fiesta collectors, so I've made copies of the Google sheet and shared it with them. I am religious about updating my spreadsheet when I get new dishes (or one breaks - sad face!). However, it's not all I want it to be... I've added pictures and sorts, but it's not exactly what I want.

I've recently started playing with Claude, an AI assistant - disclaimer: I work in technology, but I am not a programmer - and I built an application to track my dish inventory! More impressively, I built it in a weekend with ZERO programming skills. My #2 son was sitting with me kibitzing, I mean helping, and said, "Mom, I've been crafting my programming skills for the past ten years, and in an hour you built a cool app with no skill or talent!" I laughed out loud at that!

So, what did I do and what does it look like? First, I wrote a small set of requirements for what I wanted, then I uploaded my spreadsheet for the categorization and actual data. Then I refined, refined, refined.

The app does the following:

• Planning — Tablescape Ideas (seasonal setting concepts with done/to-try tracking)

• Fiesta — Vintage Fiesta and Post-1986 Fiesta, color grid with piece counts by color; By Piece view shows every piece type across all colors

• China & Patterns — Evesham, Franciscan, Lenox, Metlox; each with By Pattern / By Piece / By Maker sort views

• Glassware & Table — Other Dishes and Glassware organized by Maker → Pattern hierarchy (Thomson, Johnson Bros., Homer Laughlin, Depression Glass by color, Estelle, Waterford, Fostoria, etc.); Linens with napkin ring inventory

• Collections — Silver Flatware, Nora Fleming minis, Christmas, Fall, Halloween tableware/décor, Ornaments (Radko, Hallmark Star Trek, Sports, Nutcrackers, etc.)

• Other — Other Collectibles, Misc Décor

Core features:

• All data is editable inline — piece names, quantities, notes, maker/brand field.

• Add, rename, or delete patterns, makers, and individual pieces.

• Photos attached to each pattern — drag to reorder or move between patterns, click to open lightbox with prev/next navigation, Move and Delete buttons.

• Add your own photos via the camera button on any pattern.

• Sort views: By Pattern, By Piece (cross-reference table showing every pattern a piece appears in with totals), By Maker.

• Fiesta tabs: By Color (grid) or By Piece (sortable table by quantity or number of colors).

• Linens: By Pattern or By Category.

• Tablescape: All, By Season, or To Try.

• Ornaments: full expandable list by category with add/delete.

My spreadsheet is functional, useful, and detailed.

Now, the app view. Let me start with the totals: they are wrong; there is some duplication. Next, don't judge my dish hoarding! First, the navigation bar on the left-hand side—I love the card structure and the sort capabilities. It also has a built-in backup capability.

This is the "by-piece" view.

In the spreadsheet, I kept decals in comments and it was difficult to remember how many I have a what... no more! This is the decal view.

I also have other collections by maker, by pattern, and by piece. These views aren't exactly the way I want them, but it is a work in progress.

Glassware was probably the hardest. In tech lingo, none of my data was normalized, meaning I had makers, patterns, colors, and pieces all jumbled up. It worked in a spreadsheet, but as a data source, not so good.

This is a click into the category "Crystal" again; piece, maker, and pattern are all jumbled up, but it works for me.

You might be wondering why I did this... learning AI mostly. There are a few dish tracking apps available for Fiesta ware, but it's only Fiesta, and the maker of the app does a phenomenal job adding pieces, colors, and decals to keep tracking it easy. I actually own it. I struggled because I had all the data in a spreadsheet already and didn't want to re-enter it. The app only tracks Fiesta; I clearly have more than Fiesta. I also use the inventory for insurance purposes.

Would I make this available for others? No, I don't think so; it was built for my quirky inventory, and I have a full-time job! It was a lot of fun and frustrating at the same time. I shared the lessons I learned building it with my team and #2 son, who definitely believes I need to take classes in prompt writing (the instructions you give AI to do things). It remains to be seen whether I keep it up. It is a working app on my laptop, but we'll see if it is faster to update a spreadsheet. Old habits die hard, and maybe if I took pictures, uploaded them, and it automatically updated the inventory? Ah, next version!