The Piano

The piano couldn't have been lovelier.  It's golden brown wood gleamed with red highlights, rich and mellow, and smooth as glass.  I couldn't have been happier with the results, especially since it was my first attempt at refinishing furniture, and I'm afraid I was quite proud of myself.

I'd been working on restoring the old upright in our garage for a week: stripping off the old finish, sanding until it felt like silk, staining and varnishing and buffing, exactly like the directions said to do.  And it looked great!

I loved pianos.  Mom and dad bought a used piano when I was eight years old so I could take piano lessons.  It was still my favorite piano; dark cherry wood with a mellow tone that I'd never found anywhere else; and I'd really missed it in the last seven years since I'd been married. 

Two years earlier my in-laws had happened across an old, black, upright piano, and given it to me for Christmas.  It had been fun to have something to play again, but it wasn't in very good shape.  Eventually we had sold it to help pay bills, things were often tight around our house, and even though it hadn't been pretty, I missed it. 

Then one day my cousin called and asked if I would like her piano.  She'd just got a new one, and she'd heard I didn't have a piano of my own.  I was so excited!  She warned me it was old, scratched and dented, but it still played well.  The day her husband brought it over to our house was one of the happiest days of my life.  I had him put it in our garage, thinking that I would try to refinish it before we put it in the front room, and I spent the whole afternoon sitting next to my car playing all the sheet music I had until well past time to make dinner.

The next day I went to the hardware store and bought a refinishing kit, then started to work.  It was hard, I had no idea what I was doing and I sure did make a mess, but I was happy with the results.  The piano was lovely.

I finished buffing it about 2:00 in the afternoon.  I called the kids, and all of the neighbor kids as well, to come see how pretty it looked.  They'd been watching me work for the past few days, and I suppose they were happier that I was finished and would now have time to spend with them than they were impressed with my work, but their praise and compliments sure made me feel good.

I just couldn't wait to see what the piano looked like in my front room.  I had stained it the same color as the mantel above our red brick fireplace, which also matched the book shelves dad had just finished installing on either side of the chimney.  I was sure the piano was going to look wonderful in that room.  But how to get it there?  If I waited for Sheldon to come home from work I knew he would either grumble and complain or else simply tell me no, he didn't have time to move it tonight.  Anyway, I wanted to try it out in my front room now!

Years earlier I had been visiting with a friend about the frustrations of getting husbands to help around the house.  She had given me a good piece of advice. 

"Whenever I want something done," she had told me, "I start it.  Then when my husband comes home he either has to live with the mess or help me finish it."

I'd thought that was a good idea, although the example she told me left me shaking my head, wondering what Sheldon would do if I ever tried something like that?

"One day I decided we needed to remodel our kitchen and living room," she had told me.  "I wanted to take the wall out that separated them and make them one big room.  I tried and tried to get my husband to work on it, but he was always too busy.  So I finally just got a sledge hammer out of his shop and knocked a big hole in the sheet rock myself.  It didn't take long before my husband got to work and we finished that project."

Right. 


Anyway, I got to thinking as I looked at my beautiful piano standing in my garage, that I might be able to push it out the garage door and over the sidewalk up to our front porch.  I knew I wouldn't be able to get it up over the step, but if I got it that far, then Sheldon would have to help me move it the rest of the way or leave it standing in front of our house for all the neighbors to see.  Plus, it would only take him half as long to help me bring it the rest of the way inside, so I would be making less work for him.  At least, that's how I rationalized it in my head.

The piano had wheels, small ones, but at least I could push it, so carefully I wheeled it off the drop cloth on the garage floor and toward the front sidewalk.  It pushed pretty easily, and I was pleased with myself.  It took a little maneuvering, but eventually I got it positioned to where I could push it down the first part of our side walk, to the point where it made a right angled turn up to the front porch.  That's where I got hung up.  How could I get the piano to make that turn?  I struggled and juggled, and just when I thought I had it, the piano suddenly started tipping onto it's side.  I grabbed a hold of it's side, but the shear weight of that old upright was too much for me, and in slow motion I watched as my beautifully finished work of art slowly fell backwards, over our low brick retaining wall, and ended upside down on my front lawn.  Horrors!

All the kids ran out to see what had happened, and they stood with me surveying the catastrophe in my front yard.  "Quick," I called to the biggest of them,  "help me stand it back up!" 

Linnea and Holly and the neighbor girl, and even little Russell who was only three-and-a-half, helped me push and pull, and eventually we got the heavy old thing back up on it's wheels.  It hadn't smashed it's back at least, nor had it destroyed the brick wall, and it really hadn't even scratched up the new finish that badly, but the keys!  They had all fallen out when it was upside down.  Carefully I tried to push them back in place, and they seemed to fit. 

I decided I'd better leave well enough alone for the time being, and I didn't try moving the piano any farther until Sheldon came home that night.  He did grumble and complain, but he pushed it the rest of the way into the house, and it looked lovely, just like I'd thought. 

The piano never did have a great sound, even after I had a tuner come out and work on it.  I told myself it wouldn't have, even if it hadn't nearly done a headstand on our front lawn. Still, I sure loved looking at it, and I spent many happy hours playing my favorite songs.  Eventually, when dad built our double house and we all moved in together, I got to have my cherry wood piano again.  I gave the refinished upright to my sister-in-law, and it furnished her children with many happy years of piano playing. 

So, all's well that ends well.  Just the same, I was more careful moving things from then on.  Not that I stopped doing it by myself, I just thought about what I was doing longer before I pushed and pulled pianos, couches, beds, tables, china cabinets, and everything else, and when I felt things begin to teeter, I quickly stopped.