Zing! went my piano—and heart—strings

My husband and I have been renovating our house since we moved into it in 1989. After years of watching This Old House, we thought we were ready to tackle a little fixer-upper. We did not factor in raising three boys while taking on this project, so after all these years we are still not done. It’s a labor of love, and just like love there are moments of great stress. It is not a huge house, and we have to consider carefully how to maximize every inch.

We focused first on the big projects: waterproofing the basement, installing a new roof (twice), gutting and renovating the bathroom. I innocently thought our decisions would be based on design elements and taste, yet time after time emotion played a role.

One project that stymied us was the dining room. Even after we stripped the paint off the wood trim, refinished the floors and replaced the decorative wallboard with paint (btw I am really good with spackle), we were still unsatisfied. No matter which way we placed the furniture, we felt cramped. We always had one wall that was basically useless.

The problem was staring me in the face, but I refused to see it. I loved the problem even though I no longer had any real use for it.

The “problem” was the piano.

When I was in middle school, my parents came into some money after my grandmother died. We had just moved into a nicer neighborhood in the suburbs, and my mother became concerned about our image. She went on a landmark spending spree. Among her purchases was a used Starck piano. “Classy homes have a piano,” she said. “Now everyone will know we’re not shanty Irish.” She then signed me up for lessons. I suppose she asked me if I wanted them, but I don’t remember. Neither of my sisters were much interested in the instrument, so I alone played.

My father had studied the piano for years under the tutelage of his aunt, Sister Yvonne. (Sister Yvonne was a bit of a celebrity in our family. She had developed a method of teaching music to young children that was used in a variety of schools throughout Chicago.) Dad stopped playing when he went off to war. World War II. The Big One. WW Aye Aye. Once in a great while, after a few too many beers, he would sit down at the piano and play—something. It might have been the Overture from William Tell, but I’m not sure. It made him happy to be able to play at least that much. Then he would sit back down on his spot on the couch ala Sheldon Cooper and dare me to do better. He had kept a series of music books that always proved too difficult for me, The Scribner Radio Music Library. The books were stacked on the piano and dutifully dusted every week, but rarely opened.

My mother would cook and clean while I practiced, unaware of any wrong notes or timing, always telling me I was doing fine. She was more concerned about whether I completed the full 30 minutes of practice time. My father would nod along in time, sometimes tapping his foot, and wince if I made a mistake.

After three years, I quit taking lessons. I enjoyed playing, especially imagining myself on a concert stage with the audience enraptured with my skills, but the fact is I never understood music theory, so my progress was limited. At my final recital, I was the last performer. It was a Rachmaninoff piece, very loud, bold. I did very well until the last note. I muffed it. There was an audible sigh of disappointment from the audience. They still applauded and my parents’ smiles were real, even if I hadn’t been perfect. It took me a long time to understand that just going up and performing showed courage.

When my parents died, I inherited the piano, along with the family silver and a lawn mower. I schlepped the piano with me every time I moved. Because it had always been in my parents’ dining room, I always put it in our dining room. Well, that, and it didn’t really fit in the living room.

I loved it. I polished it. I kept Dad’s music books on it, held up by my favorite horsehead bookends. At Christmastime, I would display my Bedford Falls village on top of it. But I hardly ever played it. I meant to. I even bought sheet music from time to time. But to actually sit down and play? No. I blamed the piano bench. It wobbled.

I thought maybe we could reuse it as a bar, but my husband was not excited about that idea. Then he got this diabolical gleam in his eye.

“Let’s break it apart and recycle the pieces,” he said.

“But I love my piano!” I wailed.

My husband let me take all the time I needed to admit that my beloved piano was simply a large horizontal space that could be put to more practical use. It took up a whole wall in the dining room that could be repurposed for display and storage.

I had a piano tuner come in with the intention of selling it or giving it away, but he had disappointing news. It was passed saving, some kind of problem with the sound board, and should be taken out to the back forty and shot. OK, he didn’t use those terms, but that was the gist.

We disassembled the dining room table so we could move the piano into the center of the room. The most exciting part was cutting the wires. It was one thing to know that piano strings are under tension, quite another to snip one. The first one went ZING! and skittered straight through the dining room, across the hall and into the bathroom.

It was painful to watch. Zing! There go all the hours of playing “Somewhere, My Love.” Zing! I will never play “Brian’s Song” again. Zing! Say goodbye to endless repetitions of “Theme from Exodus.”

I considered using the soundboard as a decorative touch in the back garden, but, in the end, it was carted off to the scrapper, with just a note of complaint from our youngest, the designated muscle for this adventure.

The set of Scribner’s is ensconced in the small library nook at the top of the stairs, its musical knowledge tucked away forever. We still have the wood from the piano. I have this dream of hiring a carpenter to fashion a desk out of it. We salvaged the keys as well. I saw some cute things on Pinterest for keys such as a glass-topped table or hanging plaques with hooks for house and car keys. Maybe someday I will make a plaque with photos of my parents, and I can call it the keys to my heart. Some day.

Now instead of a musical homage to my parents, I have a bar with storage for cocktail and wine glasses and more than a few bottles of liquor. It may not be as classy as a piano, but I use it a lot more. Even if my mother would claim it makes it look like shanty Irish live here.

As with so many things in life, the piano was not just a piano. It was a symbol of my parents, an embodiment of their dream of moving up in the world. The lawn mower has long since died, now the piano is demolished. The silver is all I have left.

And the memories of my mother keeping an eye on the clock and my father nodding along, tapping his foot.