The Ugly Old Black Piano

For Vintage Thingie Thursday I am going to share the story of my Piano.


The year was 1964. I was just little, about 10 when my brother was dating a young lady who played the piano. She gave lessons and when I found out I wanted to take them too! My Dad was really good at finding bargains and making them look great, so when he told me and my Mom that he had found an old piano in some one's basement I was excited! He said something about it being in poor condition, but that he had all winter to refinish it. So a few days later a moving company brought me my piano, and put it in the basement. I wish you could have seen it! It was painted black and dusty and dirty and UGLY! I wasn't happy..... but Dad being Dad, started taking it apart to refinish it and lo and behold it was a diamond in the rough. He took all the broken pieces of the front and painstakingly glued it all back together, then he took it down to the original mahogany wood and re stained it.



It had a part of a Steinway sticker on the keyboard cover and as he took it apart, he found a serial number burned in the wood. He wrote Steinway and sure enough it was one of theirs. It was built in 1875 for a man named F. Wamelink of Cleveland Ohio and was shipped to him on December 28, 1875. Back in 1875 they didn't even make an 88 key piano, it only has 85 keys. And it was very hard to keep in tune, so finally we just kept it as an antique.


This piano weighs a ton, and having been in Arizona for almost 40 years is starting to dry and crack in a few places, no matter what I do to moisturize it, but this is my pride and joy, a part of my Dad's legacy.....enjoy!

Another Lesson in Creativity NOT!

I feel pretty stupid right now.....I went to make the decals for the jars and boy did I run into a road block! I have clear decal paper and white decal paper, and so I thought, OK...this should be on clear. Well, guess what? The decal comes out totally transparent....because there is no "white" on the back round like the original from Meyercord. They must have actually done a two step process. So I thought OK....the white will work, nope! All of the back round including where you cut around the decal is white! DRAT!!!!!! How in the heck am I going to do this? Well, my bestest friend Cheri came over and we worked on Word, I don't know Photoshop yet....and we came up with this:








Now, where you see white in the box it is white, not clear....so it changed how the decal looks.....I am so bummed! I wanted to make these for lots of things! But either you put them on a colored surface or you paint the surface a color, clear glass will not work with reproductions!

Linda, do not fear, I have an original for you......but my idea of selling these on Etsy is going to have to wait until I can figure out a way to make the decal opaque, but the back round clear.....if that is even possible. I feel pretty defeated right now. This is the best we could come up with for right now.....and it takes up the whole front square of glass on the jar......still cute but not as cute as the original! I looked at reproduction decal people on Ebay and they always show the decals on an opaque service, never clear glass..... So maybe I put this sweet little girl on something else..... Oh well another lesson in how things aren't always what they seem :)