Grandma's piano

 During her oral history interview, Fay was asked if she refinished a piano. The following is the story that she tells about that incident.

"Yes. I found out the hard way that they stain the wood and then put clear varnish on it. I thought when I went to take the finish off of that that all I had to do was take it off. When I got down to it, it was stained that color. It was terrible. So I thought, well, they bleach clothes with fabric bleach so I don't know why you can't bleach wood with it. So I proceeded to bleach the piano. I would get my bleach and I would brush it on. You know bleach is really something else. Boy, it would eat that wood. So I would watch and when it would get down so far, then I would take my brush and dip it in cold water and brush off the bleach real fast before it had eaten down to the wood and made it grainy. Anyway, I got the whole thing bleached. (laughs). I made a black piano blonde, which really is a feat."

"And then I put a mirror on the front of it and Sherry didn't want to sit and play because she could see herself. It just annoyed her something terrible to have that mirror in front of her. I went in one day and Sherry had books all along. I said, "Are you playing out of all those books at the same time?"

"She said, I just can't stand to look at myself while I am playing."

Roger's family has that piano today. The picture is of that same piano. My daughter Tara had refinished it at the time this picture was taken. It is quite a family treasure. The reason that I remembered that little story was because some of my family are helping me refinish my living room and we had to move my big old piano around a bit. Those old piano's were really heavy.