Recklessly Collecting Other People's Stuff

Has anybody reading this ever participated in your local Freecycle? It's an online community where, instead of throwing stuff away or maybe giving it to Goodwill, you post it via email and offer it to whomever wants it for free. The goal is to keep stuff out of the landfills. Or if you're looking for something you can post a "wanted" email. Anywho.

I recently joined my local group and started getting loads and loads of emails. Thus adding to my internet addiction. One little "Offer" caught my eye. An antique upright piano. In need of work but FREE. I emailed back, said i wanted it. Got Doug involved (of course. Poor man just answers to all of my many whims...). He borrowed our neighbor's truck, grabbed a co-worker and headed out to Woodland Park. Which might as well be California. It's not close. Not easy. BUT. He got the piano home and it is BEAUTIFUL. Yes, we picked it up sight unseen. So i couldn't believe my luck. I checked out what i could about it and googled piano restoration information. It's a Fischer piano and some of them have sold (once they're fully restored) for $13,000. Yowzas. Not that i'm looking to do that kind of restoration, i just felt like it must be a decent piano.

Today i had a piano guy come out to tell me about it--a "piano diagnosis." He opened it up. I was amazed at how all the pieces, from big exterior pieces to the keys themselves, fit together like a puzzle. Oh ya. Did i mention i don't actually PLAY the piano? Ya. Just got an idea in my head about how nice it would be to have one in the house. Maybe the boys will take lessons. They like having the piano around (we'll see if they do once they're taking lessons!). I do play the violin and Doug plays the guitar and grew up playing the piano. I just think music is a nice influence to have in the house. And a piano is a nice way to foster that. OK. Anyway. Piano guy. Really nice, down-to-earth kind of person. Totally trust him (he's Treesje's piano tuner, Kellie, if you're reading this). He had a book with piano manufacturers and serial numbers so we took the number off of the inside of the piano and decided it was built in 1892. Everything is original. So. Yes. It needs a lot of work. It can't be tuned because it's SO bad. It has to be restrung and have new tuning pegs put in. Which is the wallop of the price estimate. That alone is $1600. Then add another $440 to get the hammers back in their proper position, fix 10 of the ivory keys that have partial pieces of ivory (yes! it's really ebony and ivory!), replace the bridal straps and dampers. Then it will be playable. OR he said he could do this little liquid concoction thing to fix the tuning pegs and try to salvage the strings but it will be tuned lower (that's the problem now. B flat is playing an F sharp an entire key/octave? lower, for those of you who know what that means. I barely know what that means) and i don't want a weird, wrong piano. i want to be able to use it.

I asked him if we do go ahead and decide to restore it will it be a good instrument and he assured me it would, to use my own word because this certainly wasn't in his vernacular, be AWESOME. But he did say that "sometimes something free can become a liability, so you have to really like this piano to do this." Yes. Obviously. He said we can easily find pianos that will serve our purposes for $500.

The problem is this. I really like this piano. Am i crazy to even consider this? We have money that i was going to use to extend my hardwood floors that i could use instead for this. Nutso to put money into a piano when i don't even play it? Does it make more sense to just get a standard/modern piano? Looney since my kids are only 4 and 2 and will probably want to play drums anyway? Opinions appreciated...

P.S. The outside of it needs some work too. I've got a furniture repair guy coming to look at it tomorrow...