DIY: a piano refresh

I painted a piano, and I’m here to share: you can, too.

We bought this 1956 Winter & Company upright piano from a Craigslist seller about three years ago. I fell in love with it in the pictures, and after weeks of an online obsession, it came to our home avocado green, and I’ve sat in creative paralysis since then.

Initially, the quirky color brought some nostalgia to our home. It was on my grandma’s brown upright that I first learned to play so many decades ago, and between its shape and color, this one reminded me of her. While I desperately wanted to update it, I also cherished it.

I’ve been sharing some woodworking projects on Instagram, and around the time we started to think about framing and trimming out some areas in our entry room - aka ‘the piano room’ - our piano was also due for a tune-up.

On recommendation from our piano teacher, I found a wonderful and skilled tuner who not only tuned the piano, but she refurbished some busted pads and a chipped key, color matched to the keyboard. But what was perhaps the most valuable of all: she showed me how I could take apart my piano and paint it. When I asked her if I was crazy to do this, her simple “nope,” was the courage I needed to start.

And where to start is what intimidated me (isn’t it always?). But piece-by-piece, I began, with just a flat screwdriver and my two hands. From the body of the piano, it broke out into seven manageable pieces (pictured above, far right) and over the course of a weekend, I fell in love with it just a little bit more, with its engineered simplicity and beauty.

This piano got three coats of Sherwin-Williams’ Inkwell with a satin finish. I used Sherwin-Williams’ Urethane Trim Enamel which goes on like an acrylic but has the properties of oil-based paint - all good things for trafficked wood furniture. It’s just what I wanted, from the application to the finish, with a perfect balance of matte and sheen. Now, this deep, moody blue-black color perfectly complements the weathered brass hardware - that I left just as-is - and stops me in my tracks with every pass by, several times a day.

It’s my most favorite DIY project to date, but I couldn’t have started without our tuner’s help. If you’re local to the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, I can’t recommend enough Kay Piano Care. With Christine’s instruction and touch, our piano looks and sounds like I think it was always meant to, right here in our home.

And it also looks pretty good with white pumpkins, don’t you think?