A Piano . . . at last

For years I have been wanting a piano, but a new or newer piano has never been in the budget.  I finally started looking on Craigslist, but everything that came up in my price range in my area had descriptions such as: "traveled across the plains in a covered wagon" or "the piano has been sitting in my barn for the last 20 years and may have been through a flood or two." or "I'm not sure this piano can even be tuned."  Finally, one day, a few months ago, I got on Craigslist and found a piano well under my spending limit that actually looked like it might be worth a look.  I called the owner and Jeremy and I went over that evening and looked at it.  I played it a little and was impressed that it actually sounded pretty good.  So, by the next afternoon, it was sitting in my living room.  Now, this piano was only $180.00, so it had a few cosmetic issues, but I was kind of glad about that.  My boys are still kind of hard on furniture, so I thought it would be nice to have a piano that I wouldn't freak out over if my two year old ran into it with his big dump truck.  On the other hand, the piano was still going to be the focal point of my living room, so I wanted it to look nice and to go with the other furnishings in there.  I started researching how to refinish a piano, and decided that a $180 piano was probably worth the risk.  I got out the steel wool and stain and got to work (with Jeremy's help).

This is what we started with.

It really doesn't look bad in this picture, but it was a little beat up and it didn't match the decor in the rest of the room.  After a little elbow grease, this is how our $180 number looks now.

I think it is a big improvement.  Jeremy thinks it needs one more coat of stain, and after looking at these photos, I think he may be right.  For some reason, in real life those color variations don't show up as much.

I still love it though and I am glad I took the risk and refinished it.  Now, I just need to save up the money to have it tuned, so I can actually enjoy playing it. : )