This weekend we bought a piano for the foyer area of the house. It's a Baldwin Square Grand made sometime in the 1870's. We got a great deal on it so we couldn't pass it up.
We had to drive up to Nashville to get it, it took 5 people plus a pallet jack to get it in the bed of my truck. Once we got it to the house it was only me and the girlfriend though.
Luckily I can back the truck right up to the porch steps, the drop is only about 2' that way. I was able to slide it out of the bed and tilt it up on it's side. Then I was able to get a hand truck under it and wheel it into the foyer. That was the easy part. This piano weighs at least 600 pounds, probably closer to 800.
We put the 2 legs on the top part of the piano then I lowered it down on to them. With that done we moved around to the other side, got the hand truck under it and tilted it up enough to get a bottle jack under it. Then came the fun part, I had to deadlift the piano up high enough to get a 2x8 under it cut just a little longer than the legs. We were then able to put the other 2 legs on.
Here are a few pics of it before we cleaned it up:
And here are a few pics of it after scrubbing and oiling the wood (I have not touched the internals yet):
Above the keys is a large mother of pearl inlay, and above that you can barely make out the name, D. H. Baldwin & Co.
My brother restores pianos so we hope to get the internals restored soon.
We also picked up a few other things recently. In the nursery we got a really nice mahogany crib and a really nice oil painting, it's 4' x 2.5', the frame is plaster on wood:
5 comments:
A square grand? That's something I haven't heard of before. A grand would be too big for our house. I'd resigned myself to an upright, but this seems like a very workable idea.
Could you give me a general idea of the dimensions of the piano? It looks great!
The dimensions of ours is 6' 2"W x 3' 2"D x 3' 2"H. I believe most are the same size.
A nursery? Is that just planning ahead or is there a little one in the future :)
Pretty instrument! They are a different cat to work on-because they have a thin plate and were built when standard pitch was not 440, you won't be wanting to tune it to concert pitch-sometimes it's best to tune it a half-step flat. sometimes tuning them is a two-tuner job, because you can't always reach all of the pins from the keyboard.
How does it sound now?
So I checked my local Craigslist, and what should I find but this 1875 Steinway for $2500. And it even mostly plays!
Alas, it isn't in the budget this year. It's fun to look, though.
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