PJH Designs

Today I want to share an antique pie safe I just finished restoring.

Now I don't want all of you chippy paint lovers to cry when I tell you I painted this piece. I know a lot of you would have left it as is, but I had my reasons. Here is the before picture.

This is the top...

and here is the bottom. If you look on the top of the bottom :-) you'll see a bag and a watering can with water. This is the milk paint that I used to paint the pie safe.

First, I had to make some minor repairs, after over 100 years of use things were kind of sagging and loose! Then I gave it a thorough scrubbing and boy did it need it!

Next I painted the entire outside of the piece with milk paint in "Buttermilk". After that dried I took a scrapper and gently scraped off the loose paint. Milk paint, without the bonding agent, will not bond in certain areas and is easily scraped off giving you that sought after chippy look.

I then antiqued the entire piece with a burnt umber wash and after that dried I dry brushed on more milk paint and scraped again. Once it was dry I applied two coats of clear, soft wax to the entire piece which sealed it stopping the chipping and protecting the finish.

Here is the finished piece. I like that soft color much better and it is clean!

A close up of the front shows that you still have that chippy, worn look so you can quit crying now! lol

I love the patina on the butcher block top on the bottom and I left the original hardware with all their chippiness. (Hmmm, wonder how many times I can work a variation of chippy in this post)

The inside of the top was clean but had stains so I gave it a light coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in "Versailles". Much better!

The bottom drawers are metal which is typical of a piece like this but the sides were wood and also had stains so I gave all the drawers a coat of ASCP in "Madonna Blue" (a color I mixed myself using different original ASCP colors). By the way you will be seeing more original colors of chalk paint as I am creating a whole line of unique colors to use on my furniture.

I am having so much fun mixing my own colors of chalk paint. The possibilities are endless and I'm giving each color a name.

Finally, I gave the entire piece inside and out two coats of clear, soft wax. This stopped the paint from chipping and protects your finish.

I hope you like how it turned out and are inspired to try milk paint for yourself. :-)