Just Grand!

My mom, when she heard about it, said I was nuts. My cousin Wendy said I was brave. I've heard that courage and craziness are almost the same thing. The truth is, I wasn't afraid to take my piano apart—not really—and so maybe I walk the very fine line between bravery and foolishness.

By the time I was eighteen I could not walk past a piano without playing it. I had a job as a ballet pianist, I practiced my lessons about three hours a day, and since I had only a half day of school I would stay in the band room and play the grand piano for two to three hours every school day. But when, at twenty-two, I got married, I didn't have a piano to play all the time, and I went through some major withdrawal.

So Bruce and I signed up for our very first debt, and bought ourselves a piano for Christmas that year. An Astin-Weight upright grand. We'd shopped around quite a bit, and looked at several different brands (even a Steinway—which, used, cost three times more than most new pianos. We asked ourselves, "Really, could it be that much better?" It was.). But we finally decided on the locally-made Astin-Weight, with a patented, kiln-dried sound board that would survive the dry, desert climate in Utah. That piano, all by itself, was the single most expensive purchase we made in our first twelve years of marriage, costing more than the sum-total of every car we owned over those twelve years.

Aw! Look how cute, and skinny I was! And what long hair I had!
Oh, and admire our new piano, too. ;-)

Our piano moved with us nine times in twenty-nine years—including a trip to Tennessee and back. It lived through my eight kids and their friends. After matchbox cars driven across the keys, juice spilled into it, white glue dotted (and dried) onto the pedals, the modesty panel being gouged with a nut-pick, and just being knocked into by little kids over and over again (and sometimes by grown-ups too)... It was looking a little sorry. And, after all of that, and only maybe six tunings in twenty-nine years, it desperately needed to be tuned too.

It's a hard-knock life. Literally

I almost never remember to take before and after pictures until the project is started. This time is no exception. The pinky-red stuff is wood-filler. There are too many knocks and dings in the piano to fix all of them—well, I didn't want to. But I did fill in the worst ones. Anything else that isn't black or brass is where it was chipped down to bare wood.

Unbelievable!

The bench is pretty sorry too, but at least that is from normal use. The legs were wobbly from the beginning, and after a couple of years it collapsed and broke (while I was on it!). My dad and
my brother Paul repaired it; the legs have been nice and tight
ever since, but I never did paint the bare wood they used.
The upholstery just split at the seams, and the foam cushion
cracked from oxidation over the years.

Now that we are settled into our house and, hopefully, won't be moving again, I decided my poor piano really needed to be tuned; the strings sound wobbly like a warped record. But I really wanted to refinish it too, and restore it to its...well, if not its original beauty, then at least something close to it. And I didn't see the sense in having the piano-tuner out if I was going to open it all up, sand it, and paint it. So the refinishing had to happen first. So last week I took my piano all apart.

Starting with opening the lid and removing the music desk and modesty-panel. Isn't it beautiful in there? Pianos are so cool!

I find interesting things every time I open up the piano. This time it was just a penny and a comb. But how did that even get in there!

All the keys are in this tote.

And, oh my! It is dirty in there!

I cleaned, dusted, and vacuumed out as much dirt as I could. There are spots behind the strings that just can't be reached, so there's a bit of twenty-nine-year-old dust still in there. Then I sanded down the wood filler, did a light sanding of the entire piano with a fine-grit sandpaper, and then cleaned it again. (I probably should have sanded before I cleaned it. Oh well.)

After consulting with the paint store I decided that cabinet paint was the way to go. It is adhesive, and self-leveling, so you won't see the brush-strokes. They say. After the first coat, I was a little skeptical, so I watched a tutorial to make sure I was doing it right. I was. Although the tutorial said that this paint was very thin, it actually went on like Elmer's glue: the first place the brush touched was glopped with paint that didn't want to move to any other part of the piano. The tutorial did say that it would take four to five coats to really look good, and that each coat would help to hide the brush strokes from the previous coats. They said.

Still, it looked so much better after the very first coat of paint—brush strokes and all—that I was thrilled!

I threw in the towel after four coats of paint. From across the room you might think you were seeing wood-grain through the black finish. Up close you will see that it is really brush strokes. :-/  But, despite that, it looks a thousand times better than it did before; at least I think so. It was time to wash all the keys and put the piano back together again.

Each key is shaped a little differently from its friends.
It's a good thing they are numbered. (And, notice how much
cleaner the key bed is.)

And this is just interesting. Look at the difference between the hammers that have keys under them and those that don't. Cool stuff.

 I didn't remove the piano hinges (there are two of them) because
1. I didn't want to remove a zillion little screws and have to put them back in, and  2. I was afraid that if I did remove them, they might strip the wood and it would be hard to put them back in place.
But, uh-oh! Some paint dribbled through! My fingernails and
a little Goo-Gone fixed that right up!

Well, after a week of messing with it, my piano is all back to normal again. Here's the finished project:

before                                     after

        before (sanded)                                after

Oh, piano! What nice legs you have!

The piano bench is another story—I did paint it, but I'm waiting on fabric swatches (ordered online) so I can decide what I want to reupholster it with. I'll post before and after pics later.

After a long week of piano withdrawal, Rachel is playing again. (I totally understand her pain.)

Well, foolish or not, I think my piano turned out all right. And now it is time to call a piano-tuner. Yay!