Piano on the cheap, anyone?

How much would you pay for a free piano? Of course, quite a goofy question. Well, we did just that this past weekend. We were able to snag a free, upright piano, as long as we could pick it up and transport it to out house. Seeing that we don't own a truck and only have two adults in the house, we were going to have to find some help.

On Thursday, Jen forwarded me an email from a family at church that is moving and getting rid of their piano. Jen didn't even read the email, rather simply forwarded it on to me. I felt I had to jump on it because the email had gone out to all of the church members and I wanted a shot at a free piano. I shot off an email to the family saying that we would love to take the piano off of their hands. Now, I had never seen or heard the piano, but thought that a free piano is worth it, right?

The reply came back that we could have the piano as long as we come and take it away. By this time, Jen was wondering what we would do with a piano. We already have a small digital piano that has suited us just well for a number of years (and will continue to do so). I felt that the chance at an upright that the kids could bang on and play without having to use a power switch just couldn't be passed up.

So, I arranged a couple of guys from church to help us out. One happened to have a pick-up truck and offered it's use. On Saturday at 1:00pm we all showed up to move this piano. It turns out that the piano is a converted player piano and still has most of the player piano parts inside of it. That makes an already heavy piano a little heavier. Now there were four of us big, strapping, young lads to move this thing, so we shouldn't have any trouble, right? One of us lads was an active fireman, however.

After all of that build-up, I am sorry to report that we didn't drop the piano on a toe or let it roll down the sidewalk. Too bad, because that would get a great addition to the story. It took a total of 30-40 minutes to move the piano from one house into the truck, drive a couple of miles to our house, and unload the piano into our living room. And the piano is definitely used (by a few families, I hear), but is actually in good condition considering it's age and history. I'll try my hand at some tuning, but I suspect most, if not all, of the strings could use replacing, among other things.

The funny thing about the whole process is that the family who gave us the piano was so, very appreciative that we took the piano. They keep saying things like, "We can't thank you enough," and "You have helped us out so much." I wonder why they wanted to get rid of the piano so bad...