Painting a Vintage Metal Trunk with Old Fashioned Milk Paint

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After generations of travelling across the Atlantic ocean and back I have acquired a collection of vintage metal trunks! See how simply painting old trunks can give them a whole new life!

Painting Old Trunks

Disclosure: I was compensated for doing this post with product.  However, all the opinions stated here are my own.

​​In my trusty old basement we have a whole lot of trunks. Not exactly what most folks have, but then again we are not most folks. We have traveled the Atlantic many times over. My husband’s family and my own have moved to the US and back again. So it should come as no surprise that we have so many trunks.  

In fact, I counted about five last time I looked. One of them got a makeover a few years ago with decoupage and became the Chivalrous Trunk.  But the rest were in pretty bad shape.  After years in the basement (where else would they be) it was time for a makeover!  I had to drag this one upstairs to work on her.

As you may know I am an Old Fashioned Milk Paint Brand Blogger and I was curious to see if this true milk paint would work on metal. And so today I am going to show you how to revive a metal trunk with Old Fashioned Milk Paint. 

How to Revive a Vintage Metal Trunk

I started by cleaning off years worth of dirt and dust, using a vinegar and water solution.

I was going to paint it myself but instead I got one of my girls to do it. Nothing like having her do a little work for some extra money.  My girl is an artist so I was not worried about the results. And Old Fashioned Milk Paint is safe and friendly for the environment.  

I should point out here that I used the SafePaint version of Milk Paint.  There is also a regular version which allows for chippiness to occur.  But in this case we did not want any chips on the trunk.  It already had plenty of dents. For a natural time worn look!​

We mixed Pitch Black and Snow White to create a soft grey.  This is not rocket science folks.  I just added the white in a jar and then just kept on adding the black till I reached the color I wanted.  Oh and I added equal parts warm water to the powder. I let it rest for about 20 minutes and I was good to go.  It turns into a nice foamy mixture. 

You can see just how much I love my milk paint, I ordered a big batch of it. I keep it in jars.  In fact you can mix up only the amount you want and store the unused portion for up to 3 days in the fridge. ​

Here we are after a few coats of Old Fashioned Milk Paint.  I love that I can just custom mix any color I want so easily!​

The final steps were to add wax in order to seal the paint. You can even make your own beeswax furniture polish!

And of course to gussy up the hardware.  I even added some wax to the handles.

I just love the metallic burnished brass against the soft gray!​

My girl only painted some of the hardware.  There was also a bunch of metal strips going up and down the trunk but we decided in this case, less is more. ​

Here you can see all the metal studs and the strip that I was talking about right in front of the basket.​

I purposely didn’t mix the powder too much because I wanted this effect of different shades. Can you see it?  It almost looks like a cloud effect.​

It is finally presentable and can take its place in the house instead of the basement! And I’ll actually be able to use it for storage!​

I must admit I’ve had this for a month now and am very impressed with this true milk paint.  I had never seen milk paint used on metal before but it was a breeze for painting this old metal trunk.

And that is my how-to on painting old trunks with Old Fashioned Milk Paint. I have a gorgeous “new” trunk and my kid has a few extra bucks in her pocket! A win-win for sure. 

Now tell me, what should I do with the other trunks?

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