Dismantling the piano - or up-cycling for other use
November 12-14, 2021
So, our wonderful piano tuner had to deliver the bad news to us in late October that our piano was on its last legs. It had several cracks, several stuck keys that couldn't be fixed and it could no longer be tuned. Very sad. However,
we bought this piano used from a childhood friend almost 10 years ago. So I would have to say that we got quite a lot of value from it.
At first I thought we must certainly have another piano and began pricing new ones. uh... nope. Not this year (or next year either!) Then I thought, 'why not try to get another used piano?' Then a friend suggested a new digital piano. She assured me they are a completely different animal than they used to be years ago. I remember we had an old Casio that was fun to play with but in no way did it cause you to think you were playing a piano. My friends son is a true pianist and he agreed that the new keyboard was very nice. The specific keyboard recommended to me is the
Yamaha P125. While we have yet to purchase one, we do intend to do so this spring.
This whole idea was a game changer for me! Since I am not a pianist, I only want the piano to facilitate music making at gatherings of friends and family. I don't need a full sized piano all the time. As soon as she suggested the digital piano my mind started thinking about how I could better utilize that space in the dining room. Back in March 2020 I moved my office out to the dining room because I wanted to be more in the middle of things in the house. And besides, we weren't having people over anymore so I could take over that space. Well, it turns out that I liked that! So once we started having people over again we have had to make do with a weird dining room/office area that didn't really work well for any of it. I had taken over our spare dining table in the corner of the room so we had limited seating ability for meals. Plus, it stood in the area where we always put our Christmas tree - so that didn't happen in 2020, either. When I realized that I could use the space where the piano was sitting for a new office desk, I got really excited! It would allow me to stay out in the middle of things (where I have been so happy!) but would also bring back the extra dining table usage and the place for our Christmas tree. A win/win!!!
So once that was settled we realized we had to figure out what to do with the old piano. It was of no use to anyone because of the issues with it, so we knew we needed to get rid of it. But how do you get rid of a piano? We tossed around several ideas, including one that is embarrassing but was probably the one we would have gone with... roll it out the front door and to the burn pile. :D BUT, another friend (don't I have the most marvelous friends) sent me a link to Etsy that opened up a whole new world for me!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/960933314/piano-hammer-drops-of-inspiration She showed me that there is such a thing as 'piano art'. People use the parts of pianos to create beautiful art of all kinds! I had NO idea such a thing existed! Granted that first link is for an intricate (and pricey) example, but it got me looking around and caused me to discover all kinds of neat piano art ideas. Now, if you know me, you know I am NOT crafty or gifted in this way at all... BUT, my beautiful daughter-in-law is SO creative!! I texted her to ask if she had any interest in piano art and she replied that she had always dreamed of having piano parts to create with! Well, that took care of that! We were going to dismantle this piano and save the parts for art! (yes, I am totally using the 'royal' we in that statement... poor Marvin...) :D
Sooooo, for a weekend in mid-November my dear husband and I studied YouTube videos and he dismantled our old piano piece by piece. Can you believe it? What a guy!!! This was quite a job! Very involved and some parts were actually dangerous. (The tension on the strings is so high that it can be dangerous to remove them - it required a lot of patience and careful, tedious work.) Overall it was a fascinating process - we got to see the inner workings of a piano in a way that we had never experienced before.
First step was removing all the keys. We had to laugh that at every step, whatever the YouTube video said would work was far more complicated on this particular piano. For instance, on most pianos those keys just slip off after you undo a few places. Not his piano - each key had to be released individually. :)
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| but Jonathan and Marvin got it done! |
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| a box full of keys for Brianna! |
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| the section of hammers sitting on my dining room table :) |
Each of those strings would have to be released one by one - look at all those knobs. And this was the high tension work where Marvin had to be super careful.
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Marvin does most things by 'feel' anyway -
but that talent sure came in handy on this project. |
You do not want to merely clip those tension wires. They can come off with enough force to cut your finger off and/or fly across a room and do real damage. So again, this was a slow, careful process of loosening each wire to release the tension first.
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you really can see how these individual pieces
could be used for beautiful and creative art |
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you can see how my office took over the spare dining table in the corner of the room...
dismantling the piano was going to fix that 'problem'... as you will see in another post to come. :) |
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| That harp weighs about 200 pounds all by itself. Isn't it beautiful? |
What a job! So thankful for all the hard work that it took to dismantle the piano. But I feel so good about up-cycling the parts for other creative use. Much better than the burn pile option... :D
