The $100 Piano

For the last several months, our piano teacher has been telling us that Natalie really needs to be practicing on a real piano instead of our little electronic keyboard. Not wanting to spend a fortune, I began a rather frustrating search.

At first I had hoped to find a nearly new piano with a good name brand, but I quickly discovered such an instrument is rare (most people do not buy a high quality piano and then sell it cheaply after a year or two) and almost as expensive as a new piano. So, I came up with a new strategy. I would look for a "band-aid" piano--something cheap, but not too run down, that would tide us over until we could afford what we really wanted.

I started regularly checking Craig's List for pianos under about $500, but anything that wasn't a piece of junk sold really fast. And by really fast, I mean really fast! Mark was actually on the phone with one seller getting directions to go see the piano when they guy told him someone else had just shown up and bought it. After a couple of near misses, I was getting pretty frustrated, so when I came across a minutes old add with photos of what seemed to be a nice looking Chickering and Sons piano offered at $100, I emailed right away to say that we would take it sight unseen.

The next few days while we waited for the piano to arrive were agony. I had very high hopes for my $100 piano, but Mark did not. What I thought looked good in the photos, Mark thought looked beat up. The night before the piano came I was so anxious I even had a dream about how it would arrive and be so much better than Mark had thought. Unfortunately, Mark was right.

I was extremely disappointed when the piano arrived. It was dirty, dull, chipped, scratched and even paint-splattered. The sound was actually pretty good, but two of the keys were broken and several others were sticking. I almost didn't want it brought into the house, but then I pulled on my pioneer attitude ("make it do or do without") and decided to make the most of it. It was, after all, only $100.

I started by giving the piano a good wash with oil soap. Then I went over to Home Depot and bought a touch-up stain pen and started to work cleaning up all the scratches. After that I gave the whole piano a good scrub and polish with Orange Glo. I finished up by reupholstering the seat with some new fabric. After a few hours of work, it looked like a whole new piano, and I was feeling pretty good about the purchase. After the piano tuner came by I felt even better. He told us that Chickering is a top of the line brand and the piano was probably worth between $2,000 and $2,400!

Now all tuned and fixed-up, the piano is looking and sounding great. After all the repairs and the cost to transport the piano to our house, we spent about $700 on it. Would I rather have a brand new Yamaha? Sure. But, at one-tenth of the cost, I think our little fixer-upper will keep us happy for quite a while.