Antique Piano Repurposing, Part 2....Hall Table

 If you missed our first post about this piano that we are giving new life to you can check it out here.

Now to continue on our story....

We left with the piano looking like this.  I forgot to get a picture of it right after we removed the harp.  We wanted to keep the front portion (where the keys sit on the piano) so that required us to cut that section out.  That led to fun with a skill saw :) Surprisingly, it was very easy.

Here is how it looked right after my husband cut it out.  Nothing like commandeering your garage and turning it into a mini workshop!  The large section left on the floor? Don't worry it has more life to give and we will get to it another day.  

On of the pesky pillars

Next there was a lot of sanding, and sanding and then more sanding followed by wiping it down to get all the dust off of it.  It might be hard to tell, but there are lots of groves and small spaces that made sanding difficult, particularly the pillars on either end.  But somehow the job always gets done, just a little time and elbow grease.....and it makes for a great excuse to get an orbital sander!

We used a stain-polyurethane combo from Minwax, put on in two coats.  If you remember my husband's sled restoration project he did the staining and polyurethane as two separate steps.  After doing this he preferred the end result with having them done separately (staining, then applying a polyurethane) as they were done on the sled.
 

We wanted to create sort of box-like structure for the glass top to sit in, thus we didn't cut the ends down all the way flush.  We used some of the wood from another part of the piano to go across the front closing it in, also slightly raised from where the glass would sit.  So now we were left with the sides and front closed in and the backside open.
 
We cleaned the keys and put them back in their spots and brought it into the house.  We did a lot of looking around online for glass businesses where we could order the top from.  It was a little trickier that I thought it would be.  A lot of local places didn't do table-top glass.  Online stores could ship it but the price of shipping was more than the glass itself.  Then there was the type of glass: 3/16 inch vs 1/4 inch vs 3/4 inch vs annealed vs tempered vs beveled edge vs rounded edge vs...well you get the idea.  We ended up finding a local place and the price was great and we were able to drive down and pick it up a couple days after ordering it.  We didn't want to drag anything out hemming and hawing on which glass would be best, so we went with a 3/16 inch-thick, annealed glass with a straight smooth edge and it was perfect!  We measured where the glass was going to sit, then measured it again....and again.  We don't have a glass cutter and didn't want to mess with that, but shop class paid off and the size we ordered fit right into the spot we had created.  Otherwise, trying to cut it or taking it back to the glass store for a resize would have been in order.

 Here it is with the glass!!

This is one of my favorite parts, the beautiful ornamenting on the table.

One of the best parts is you can still see the keys!!

 This is sitting in the hall of our front entryway. 

I just love it!!!

Stay tuned for more projects from the rest of the piano.....