A couple of years ago I decided to refurbish the inside of this musical instrument. My youngest son is the musician in the family and is really the only one who plays it. He had been complaining that it needed to be improved. One day, the piano will be passed on to him.
The piano has a great deal of sentimental value as it was in my father's home growing up in Pennsylvania. And while he never played it, two of his sisters did and it was an important item in their home. Well, a piano is meant to be played and so I decided to make it more playable!
We found a great guy named Hoyt to refurbish the piano. When Hoyt arrived, he first did an overall survey of the external parts of the piano and told me it was actually a very good one. It is an Ivers and Pond - no longer in business - but a company that made excellent pianos in their day. All of the ivories were in perfect shape and he says they look to be the original ivories as well.
He then opened the piano up revealing the "guts" of the piece. Very interesting! All kinds of information here. First, a label with the date it was made July 2, 1910 along with the signatures of the people involved in making it. Wow - you don't find that kind of pride in workmanship today! There was also a label documenting the various patents for the mechanical aspects of the piano - some dating back to the 1880's. And finally a label with the serial number, the Ivers and Pond name, and the city it was made in - Boston.
I truly felt like I was stepping back in time as I examined the inside of this wonderful piece of history. It took about two months for Hoyt to finish his work which included replacing and refurbishing the "hammers" for the keys.
The end result was that the piano sounds great ... here is a picture of my son playing it. Even though he is now 24, he still comes home from grad school on a regular basis and enjoys playing it.
Nothing has been done to the outside of the piano - it is still the same finish and has its share of scuffs and scratches. But I think this adds to the charm and beauty of this piece and I don't plan to do anything at all to the outside.
P.S. Linking up with A Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson. Hope you will visit her Blog and join the Share Your Cup link. Visit at: http://jannolson.blogspot.com/2013/04/share-your-cup-thursday-53.html
