"New" Piano

Justin has been trying for months to talk one of our mothers into letting us "store" their piano for them. Neither of them were keen on the idea until Justin's parents decided to downsize their home and ended up selling it very fast. Not wanting to move their piano, they gave it to us! I wasn't nearly as excited as Justin was at first because I didn't want an old piano. I was hoping that in 3-5 years we could buy a 10-20yr old used baby grand and I could fix it up myself. I was worried that if I let him bring this old piano in our house then I'd never be able to get one that I wanted. After a reality check from Justin about all the other things we hope to buy in the next 3-5 years, I realized that it would probably be much longer than that before I got my baby grand. As a compromise, I let Justin bring home the old piano as long as it didn't come into the house until we refinished it (come on, imagine how long it would have taken to get the motivation to get the piano OUT of the house to refinish it if we didn't do it first?). We hoped for a 2 day turnaround because of the heat and not wanting the piano to get warped, but we didn't quite make it. It took us 4 days, which is still pretty amazing, and here are the results.
BEFORE:
Three layers of sanding, added scroll detail and two coats of black stain, one more ultra fine sand with a fine wool grain (going for the shabby look so the last sanding was just to rough up some of the edges), spray paint on the pedals and some new fabric from Hobby Lobby...
AFTER:
 I can say that I am happy we have this piano now :-)

 
I think the pictures below are just funny. We had just finished our very last swim trip at Grandma's Jo's house and were in pajamas on our way home. We took the camera in case we wanted to take pictures swimming but never did get around to it. I pulled out the camera in the car and Adaira was all for me taking pictures of her. It takes so many shots to get Brighton and Adaira with decent smiles (mainly because of Brighton....) and it wasn't until after taking all of these that I noticed Dale's SCOWLS. That kid just makes me laugh. all. the. time.
First picture he's watching the older two...
 Then he let's me know he's not into this whole picture taking thing...


I think I love this scowl the best:

Come on, that's funny, right?

Comments

Angie said…
Way to go getting a piano! (Mom wouldn't let you have hers????) You're a trooper going through all that sanding, yikes, that's a lot of work, but you did a great job!
I love seeing pictures of the kids. They're so happy and I it's great to see the goofy faces they make, they really enjoy life!
8/30/2011 06:45:00 PM
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