Moving a piano
In the house were we lived for eight
years there is a narrow hallway leading to a small door.
it is at a rather difficult angle, and yet if the door
were open you would see that somehow, beyond reasonable
expectation, someone was able to get a grand piano into
the room beyond. I used to tell people that we started
with the piano and built the home around it. Or that if
was done with a really enormous pair of tweezers, like a
ship in a bottle.
It is a shame I don't have a picture
to show you. It took three guys who looked like they
played for the Dallas Cowboys close to two hours of
huffing and puffing to somehow get the piano around the
corner and into the room. And they hardly even wrecked
the molding. Once there was a rather distressing sound,
but nothing was irretrievably damaged.
When it came time to remove the piano,
a couple of skinny guys got it out in about 20 minutes.
Apparently if you use the hallway to make a three point
turn instead of trying to put the thing straight in from
the living room it goes faster. I had mentioned that
plan eight years earlier, but some folks don't care for
geometry. It just shows there is more than one way to
get a piano into a room.
An upright piano is usually not such a
big deal. A grand piano is where things get complicated.
The piano I own is six-and-a-half-feet long from
keyboard to tail. But some pianos can get up to 9 feet
long. There is an Italian company that likes to make
them 10 feet long. How on earth are you supposed to get
one of those through a doorway?
Most pianos come with wheels on them
but these appear to be largely ceremonial. If a piano is
actually going to be mobile in any real sense of the
word most people have the piano put on casters which are
basically dollies with much larger wheels on them that
the piano can use to ride around in style.
Of course, there was a time when a few
of us moved a piano my parents had lent to a neighbor up
the street back to our house after the neighbor girl
stopped playing the piano. It was just a couple of house
away and downhill. I remember using the upright piano's
actual wheels to pilot the instrument down the street
and into our driveway. I suspect we had to lift it over
the threshold and I don't remember the stairs into the
living room very well. I guess once I recovered from the
hernia all my memories must have been erased.
At any rate, you probably want to have
it done by professionals. Just don't hire
these guys.
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