Piano Restoration

Ok folks, I got my blue piano. I have been thinking about this for a while...and it finally happened. It was not as simple as I had anticipated, however.

I looked for a deal and I got my $50 piano...but then I actually agreed to pay $100 over the asking price to get some help moving the thing. Again, I made this craigslist deal, site unseen...and of course, we get there to find this lady who was down on her luck, laid off...and, well...she lived in a trailer that reeked of urine. Literally would take your breath away. The floor was falling apart as we moved the piano and she admittedly didn't think the thing had been tuned since she got it (when she was 7 years old). As usual, I felt bad and didn't renege on the deal, even though it was quite clear that this piano would take a lot more work than we had anticipated. It would actually get worse when we got it home and found that it had obviously been housing a mouse family...and fortunately, no permanent damage seemed to be done. Still gross and a whole lot of cleaning and dusting.
I had one sleepless night...thinking about all the better pianos I could have bought with the money I had now invested in this one. The piano is actually a Mehler, which is supposedly one of the better than average brands...however, this one needed far more work. Someone had butchered the top of it and put this weird mirror (you can see this in first photo below if you look closely- I didn't get this in before and afters because Daddy removed it almost immediately. It would need wood work, polish and a lot of tuning (which we will wait to do in the fall).
Finally, this evening...it all came together at last. We are actually quite pleased. This has been one of our more tedious, but also one of our most interesting and beautiful restorations.

So, $50 piano. $100 for moving. $50 for gas. $90 for wood, molding, paint. 20 man hours. 2 back aches, 1 sleepless night, 3 headaches later...and here you go:





















What do you think?