Waayyyyy back in oh, June of last year we started going to Fellowship Baptist Church in Dublin -- and not long after we began to attend there, they had an announcement that there was a piano in the multipurpose room that they were getting rid of --- for FREE.
I was immediately thinking "oooh please YES!!!" but needed to bide my time and wait to see if any of the long-time members wanted it first... so I waited for about two weeks and then said to the pastor that if nobody else wanted it, we'd have it!
It took 8 men to get the piano from the church to my parent's house -- and in their actions of moving it into the living room, they kind of scratched the wood floor. Which wasn't an issue really -- because Mom was planning on replacing that floor anyhow -- with tile. Well she decided to go with wood again, and had it replaced last year right before Thanksgiving. It looks beautiful and amazing.
She has been desiring for us to move the piano to our home since we moved in -- she doesn't want it in her living room any more. Fair deal -- I'm thankful she let us keep it there as long as we needed to.
So we talked about splitting the cost for a piano mover (so as to ensure no scratches on the new wood floor!!) -- and I meant to get quotes -- but figured I'd do it on the Monday after my job finished. She called on Sunday to let me know that her new living room furniture is being delivered on Tuesday November 14th and that the piano needs to be moved by then. I kind of freaked, figuring it would take longer to get quotes and find someone available by then. No worries. I remembered the guy who moved our things from England from storage into the house -- he was so careful, precise, polite, fast and he said he moves all kinds of stuff, pianos included!
So I called him Sunday and I got a message that that customer isn't receiving service at this time. No "please try again later" or "leave a message at the tone", nothing. So I went online to try and get some quotes and went into yellow pages to try and find some companies to call on Monday.
Monday arrives -- I try mr. mover again -- his name is Brandon. I get through and he says he would be available -- he just needs to call me back to make arrangements. So he calls about 20 minutes later and lets me know the fee $100 (cheap for a piano move) -- and asks if he can call me the day before they move it, if I can be flexible like that -- and fortunately I can!! Because I'm free!! FREE!!
So he calls back Monday afternoon later on and sets things up for Tuesday. (I should have mentioned to him that it took 8 men to get the piano in!!) I gave him directions and he met me at Mom and Dad's house -- Mom was home and Dad was home on his lunch break. It's raining -- half-spitting, half-raining. Dad (thank you Dad!!) goes and gets several sheets of cardboard out of the garage to cover the wood -- sooooo thankful he did this -- otherwise it would have been a repeat performance of the wood-scratching fiasco!!
From the moment they moved the piano into the hallway by the front door -- it became a dictionary-perfect PALAVER. Oh my word -- I was half expecting to watch the piano bounce down the few steps to the sidewalk like that Laurel and Hardy skit where they have to deliver the piano up all those stairs... Oh my goodness -- I sure did think we were going to have to make a trip to the ER with one or both of these boys.
*deep breath* OK -- so they got the piano out (don't know why they didn't bring more guys -- or proper equipment -- they were using a regular old two-wheel dolly to try and hoist this beast!! Anyhow, they got it out and then up onto their truck (with a lil help from Dad and my brains -- thinking of the best way to get it up there) -- and followed me to my house (nevermind the little detour because I pulled out onto a street and they didn't follow immediately and let 3 cars get in between us!!).
Once here, I had to go inside and not look while they got the piano back DOWN from the truck -- I just can't even picture how that went!! They got it inside, and we put it on those furniture "sliders" and slowly made it to where I wanted it to go -- the piano wheels are very old, and they lock and that's what caused the scratching in the first place -- well on the sliders, they kept just rolling right off!! It was bizarre.
So the piano is finally here, in place, and pretty much doing well (I'm choosing to ignore the way that the dolly completely scratched the blazes out of the wood on the one side!!!!!). The cats think it's pretty interesting -- I was in the other room and heard "plink, plink" and snuck around and there's Frankie sitting on the chair with his paw up on the keys. Very funny. I did try and run for the camera to get a video, should he choose to do a repeat performance... but he doesn't perform on demand.... swine cat.
Posted by Andy at November 8, 2006 1:03 PM