Mom's pie safe

Mom gave me her pie safe several years ago, but I never got it until she died because she was using it. My brothers brought it down a couple of weeks ago and I decided to put it in my kitchen. My kitchen is kind of small, so there wasn't room to get a picture of the whole thing in one shot.


I spent the better part of the weekend cleaning and repainting the inside. I will leave the outside, scars and all, to remind me of Mom. All of the corners were reinforced by Daddy to keep out the mice.

Most pie safes I've seen have had either punched tin doors or sides or vents covered with screen or punched tin. This one has had screen tacked over side holes.


The bottom shelves are for other storage, so don't have vents.

Since I don't bake nine pies at a time (which this would easily hold), I will use it for storing other kitchen essentials.

The frugal story... when I first thought of using it in the kitchen, I knew I'd have to do a lot of cleaning. I was at a Dollar Store and looked for Fantastik, which is my favorite heavy duty cleaner (I know... not green and not frugal!). They didn't have it, but they had another brand, so I bought it, thinking that it would work as well. It didn't. Not by a long shot.

So I went to the Fantastik web site (S.C. Johnson) and found a "contact us" link and emailed them. Well... they sent me a coupon for a free bottle!

And then, I wanted to paint the inside to make it more useable and first thought I would have to go and buy a quart of white paint, but I got to digging around and found a gallon of paint leftover from... at least 15 years ago. It was latex, so I put a little water in it, stirred and stirred and stirred some more and saved another few dollars on paint.

All in all, I spent a little over $3 for a bottle of cleaner - that didn't work!

P.S. The left drawer front is held on by duct tape along with some brass tacks. The drawer is long gone. I hope I can find someone to recreate it, but the challenge will be finding the right size wood. They plane wood different now than when this was made.