Under Construction: Pianos! Pianos!!

Jeff and I decided to clean out our garage this week. It's amazing how much junk and clutter we've collected during our 9 months of marriage!!! Before we started cleaning the garage, we couldn't even see our floor!! It was nearly impossible to even step outside our garage door without tripping on something. Boy, it's nice to declutter and throw old/unnecessary stuff out!!!

As we started to see the floor and walls again (LOL!) I noticed my old piano sitting by the garage wall. This is the 1st piano ever welcomed into the Ney house. We got it about 7 years ago from our local thrift store, when us girls started to take lessons in our house. It's not the "nicest" piano in the world--it lacks in looks as well as in sound and quality, but it has served us well. :) About 2 or 3 years before Jeff and I got married, some friends gave us their nicer piano and my parents planned on dumping the old one. I begged them to keep it, so I'd have a piano for my house, for whenever I got married and moved out. They sweetly stored it in their garage for me. When Jeff and I got married, we relocated the piano to our garage, since we don't have room in our house for it.

As I already stated, this isn't the nicest piano. It's an old upright, and I believe it's about 80 years old. All the keys are chipped and the strings inside the piano are getting too delicate to even tune. Last year, I tried to sand it down (because the stain was so ugly!!) Well, since it had been sitting in the garage for so long, it sanded down a bit funky. It's got stain spots all over it now. I'm not even going to post a picture on here of it, because it's so pathetic looking on the eyes.

I was talking to my mom this afternoon, trying to decide if I should just dump it (and down the line, when we get a bigger house, i'll just buy a new one) or if I should finish sanding it down (because I KNOW with some work it will sand down to some nice clean wood) paint it up and put new keys & strings in it. I haven't priced new keys and strings yet, but I'd assume it would be about the same price or cheaper to buy a used new piano as it would be to fix this one up...? I'm still trying to decide if it's worth it or not, but at this point, I think i'm going to fix this one up.

I looked up some pictures online of "painted pianos" as I don't plan on staining it again once it's sanded. I found some crazily painted pianos, as well as a few that I really like. I'm trying to get some ideas for mine! :) Enjoy these photos!

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Nice and simple!!