When pickling was done well, it had a kind of a pleasant, cool-color effect like this. The example in the picture looks like it would be ok for some things, like a baby's crib or maybe kitchen cabinets. Usually, though, it was done on bare wood so the grain sort of showed through - it was a pale blue stain instead of a brown wood stain.

My cabinet had been painted in some areas and then pickled, and some areas were bare wood with just the pickling. It was the strangest thing - almost as if they finished different parts of it at different times and it was too heavy to move so they just didn't finish the parts against the walls or something.