The Hollow Blog: The Piano!

Well ,we bought a piano!! As you do! As you DO when you see one advertised for $50! Geoff has often talked about wanting one and learning to play. We even seriously toyed with the idea of getting one a few months ago. We let it go though in the end as we thought $700 was a bit too much money to pay for something that might be just a passing fad or once we HAD it, Geoff discovered that he wasn't really interested after all!
Soooooooooooooo when the $50 option popped up we grabbed it!! It was only in Huonville so was a 15 minute drive to collect it....... That's when it gets complicated! The man who owned it had a steep drive. A VERY steep dirt track drive! It had transpired when Geoff went to view it initially, that the very nice owner would deliver it for us (for $30 , so yes l guess the piano cost us $80!) on the back of his ute. Our two wheel drive one would have had great difficulty getting up there ,let alone coming back down with a piano on the back! ! So Mark met us at the bottom of his drive, took us up to the house and within minutes we had loaded this lovely old piano onto the back of his ute!

He was terribly organised and had a block and tackle rigged up so the old girl floated up into the air (without bringing down the roof of his shed!!!)

And gently landed on the back of the ute underneath,

If only it was going to be THAT easy the other end!!

So back down the drive we went. Geoff stayed in the ute and l followed behind with our car.

Once we got back to our place we slid the piano onto our ute so Mark could go home (as his job was done) and leave the fun bit to us!! WE don't have a block and tackle so WE were going to take a lot longer to get it off!!

For some bizarre reason my camera flicked to black and white for these next few photos but l must say l am glad it did as l absolutely love them!!! This looks like something out of the 1930's!!

A quick play!

And the fun began! (and colour returned!!)

Being experts at getting heavy stuff off utes (using manual labour) we quickly installed a hay bale ramp (with extras on the sides just in case it toppled over!) The wood heater was small fry compared to this! This thing weighed a LOT!!

Luckily its wheels were rusted and not very good so it was relatively easy getting it off the back. With pulleys and a bit of shunting and grunting to keep it on the tracks we got it down without drama!

Phew!!

Then it was just a matter of push, pull, push, pull inches at a time!! Luckily we had these boards which made it a lot easier to slide it over the ground.

A quick pit stop, wine, beer and a play in the dying afternoon Sun on the lawn. l knew that piano stool would be useful one day!

Then we had the step to contend with. We were DREADING the step. l think we would have needed three more men to push the thing physically uphill!! l had no IDEA how we were going to manage!

As THE STEP got nearer and nearer, we had a rethink on trying to get it through our exceptionally narrow back door (with NO step!) l had already measured it and said the piano was wider but Geoff (who measures better than me!!!!) checked again in sheer hope and desperation, and discovered it would fit! .................JUST!!

And oh boy JUST was literally JUST!!!!!!! We couldn't have fitted a hair either side it was that close! Thank goodness! Plain sailing all the way from there on AND the wheels loosened up with a bit of good old WD40 and we fairly scooted across the kitchen tiles....................

Into the Dining Room....where it still is.........we totally had had enough of massively heavy piano moving...................it's sort of in the way........sort of in the middle of the room..