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I found this cherry wood, baby grand piano at a yard sale.  After scanning over everything at the yard sale, I was just about ready to leave, when I spotted a cardboard sign, that was faintly written on, lying on top of some clothing on a picnic table bench.  As the words came into focus, I read, "For sale baby grand piano $300.00".  I was so excited!  I'm sure that a lot of people didn't even see the sign.  

The piano was in the house, so I asked to see it.  It needed to be refinished, but looked pretty good to me, and all the keys were there...that's all that counted to me, so after finding out it would cost me another $200.00 to get it home, she agreed to sell it for only $200.00.  The finish was in really bad shape, and the lid hinge screw holes were stripped.  It took me several weeks to refinish it.  I took most of the parts off and removed all the hardware that would come off.  I left the main piano insides and the keyboard just where they were, but taped them off really well.

I used a furniture stripper to get the old finish off, and then used a liquid gel stain to finish it.   

It didn't come with a piano bench, but thankfully I found one at another yard sale the following week.  The top was all dented and messed up, so I refinished it and covered it with some quilting batting and a piece of  fabric I had on hand. I made the tassels by cutting and rolling some fringe. 

After accomplishing this, I asked my nephew, who works at a moving and storage place, to keep his eyes open if he should ever come across another one, because I wanted to refinish another one to sell in my shop at the Schoolhouse Restaurant Craft Store in Camp Dennison, Ohio.  He called me a few months later, and said he had a baby grand piano that he had been storing for himself, but decided it was too much work to refinish. 

He sold this baby grand piano to me for only $300.00, delivered!

In the meantime, I married Greg Hansen , who is an unbelievable piano player, and (excellent guitar player too!).  So, I decided we should keep it because it was in much better condition sound-wise. 

This piano came from a nursing home.  It was originally brown and had big dents all around the band of it.  I spread wood filler all around the band of the piano using a drywall knife.  It took two coats of wood filler and sanding to get it smooth.  The lids hinges were stripped on this one too.  It took me about six weeks of my spare time to complete it.  

We couldn't have been any more excited than if we had spent $20,000.00 on it.  I spent approximately $900.00 total for both pianos and refinishing supplies...not bad, eh?  Greg even learned to tune the baby grand pianos himself, with a little coaxing from his do-it-yourself wife!