Money Matters
hoffse
member
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Update: My piano hunt continues
I posted about this a few months ago and have some updates:
First, our built-ins are now finished, with space for an upright piano to go in the middle. My dad helped with these. They were a DIY and total investment was about $300. Pics below (side-note: the pic makes the shelves look a little curved, but they are not. My camera just couldn't get a straight shot of them for some reason...).
As for the piano...
We have been to California and inspected a piano that has been "given" to my H, which currently resides at his grandma's house. It's in terrible condition. At least a dozen keys did not play, and the tone of it was metallic, which indicates the sound board is in bad shape. It's not a brand that's worth restoring. The cost to have this thing moved across the country is more than the piano itself is probably worth, so H is in the process of gently telling his mom and grandma that we aren't going to take it.
So now I'm back to looking at local options. Here is where I am at:
We could buy a used version of exactly what we want for around $4,000. Our ideal piano is a Yamaha U1, black studio upright, gorgeous sound. The piano store near our house has one right now for that price.
I could take a gamble on something that could be great or could be terrible from Craigslist. I would have to hire movers to get it to our house. The piano, moving, and tuning costs would probably run in the $500-$1,000 range. It could get more expensive than that if it needed actual repairs and not just a good tuning.
I found a semi-retired piano tech who has his own piano moving business. He seems to pick up cheap pianos when he finds them and fixes them up for resale. I have contacted him to see what he has. Right now, he doesn't have anything in his online gallery that looks AMAZING, but I could probably find something that plays OK in the $1,000-$2,000 range from him. And because he has a piano moving business, he usually throws in the moving fees and a free tuning as part of the price.
I'm inclined to go with the last option because it's cheaper than a piano store, but I have more certainty than with Craigslist. I'm on the fence though. Part of my waffling is that I played on maybe 25 pianos at the piano store, and I always came back to the same two brands - Yamaha and Kawai. Literally every other piano I played from a different brand sounded "wrong" to me. Yamahas and Kawais tend to be more expensive though. H and I could go up to $4K, but we would rather set our ceiling at $2K. However, I'm concerned we will have to compromise on the sound to get a good price, and then I'm going to hate playing it.
What would MM do?
Re: Update: My piano hunt continues
While I don't think there is anything wrong with buying used off CL...especially from a guy who does it for a side business...I think the most important thing is that you really like the sound and feel of the piano you all purchase. This is a major purchase that is going to be the centerpiece of whatever room it lives in. You'll play it. (I'm assuming) you're H will play it. I also suspect any future kid(s) will have at least some lessons on it...and maybe years of lessons if it is a hobby they like.
For this kind of purchase that will be used for years to come, I'd err on the side of buying a piano you all really love, even if it is more expensive. I even cringed a little when you described "I could probably find something that plays OK", lol.
If you haven't already, I'd let CL piano guy know the two pianos you all had especially liked and get his feedback for how often he gets those pianos/similar quality pianos in. Maybe wait a bit to see if you can get the best of both worlds.
P.S. Those built-ins look great! I'm planning to do something similar in my living room for an accent wall that currently has an electric fireplace. We would be DIYing also. You're giving me hope it wouldn't be too expensive or time consuming, lol.
Hoffse, you work hard and MM hard. It is time to treat yo self.
Isn't that crazy? I'd say I'm surprised, but I see it all the time when I am trying to buy or sell something on CL. No pics at all and/or basic info is missing. If I want to sell something, I want to sell it ASAP, and try to make my ad as enticing as possible.
For this reason alone, I think you need to hold out for something you really want vs getting something that's just OK. It sounds like you and your husband can both play well enough that if you settled for something, you'd probably not play it just because you'd know it didn't sound right which will annoy the heck out of you.
What about repairing the clavinova to tide you over?
That's wonderful news you all found a piano you liked and got such a great deal on it! Didn't even have to wait very long
.